Speak to My Soul ~ Clear out the Clutter

If you are like me there are some closets in the house that are shoved, jammed, and packed full of “stuff” that when you put something in or take something out of it you do so with a lightning pace and pray the whole time that nothing falls on you.

Come on, I know I am not the *only* one who has a closet or two like this.

This past weekend I thought it would be a good idea to attack the linen closet in our upstairs hallway and Clear our the Clutter. I have no idea why I felt like this weekend was a good time to do it, but I had a restless in my spirit that I “needed” to do that, so I set up a folding table at the top of the stairs and diligently went to work on the closet.

I think it took me over an hour to just pull everything out of the closet. Now, that makes it sound like it was a giant walk in closet, but no, it’s not. In reality it is a tiny little closet at the top of the stairs but it has had sheets and stuff shoved into it for the four years we have lived in this house and let’s just say it was an act of mercy from God Himself if you could get the door closed on the first try.

The reality is that there is no one except my family that goes into this closet, but it is also a good indicator of the state of my life right now. There’s “stuff” everywhere and the clutter and confusion is starting to make my head spin.

They break up and clutter my path [embarrassing my plans]; they urge on my calamity, even though they have no helper [and are themselves helpless]. Job 30:13 AMP

What I learned in the time that it took me to tackle that closet was that so many times we keep holding on to “stuff”, most of the time we don’t even know why, but that stuff ends up causing frustration and even confusion. As I went through the various sets of sheets I noticed that some of them have been in that closet for a very long time without ever coming out. I had them tucked away thinking that “we might need them one day” but in all reality they hadn’t been something we used in years. It was way past time to Clear out the Clutter!

The stuff is not what God wants us to focus on…it’s Him. It’s so easy to get distracted by everything that is going on around us, but we need to Clear out the Clutter in our lives and really focus on what God has called us to do.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Hebrews 12:1 NIV

I know that it was only one closet and it was just sheets, but the freedom that I found from cleaning out that closet has given me excitement about Clearing out the Clutter in other closets as well as other parts of my life as well.