Put it Away!

I’m the type of person that works best in an orderly environment. Now, that of course does not mean everything in my little home domain is well-ordered all the time. I have a blind spot to mess, and it’s often not until I find myself struggling to settle into a thinking task that I realize what the problem actually is.

Elisabeth Elliot says in her book Let Me Be a Woman that, “A disordered life speaks loudly of disorder in the soul.” I have often found it true that external clutter is often a clue to a cluttered heart and mind. But sometimes that external clutter isn’t just a symptom. At least for me, I find that it also exacerbates my internal clutter.

For example, I had a day set aside to work on a specific project. Throughout the morning I struggled to get through my daily tasks and settle into the project. At one point, I walked into my room, having gotten distracted from the project yet again, and noticed several pairs of shoes that needed to be put away. I then looked around at my “workspace” and realized that the external clutter had gotten out of hand. It took only a few seconds to put the shoes away and straighten up, and when I sat down to work again, I found it much easier to focus. This was partly because the space was more orderly, but also because I was now aware of my internal clutter as well.

Putting things away in their rightful places isn’t complicated, or particularly difficult when it comes to it, but I so often let disorder grow without even realizing it. It reminds me of Hebrews 12:1-2

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Those out-of-place shoes reminded me just how easy it is to let spiritual clutter build up through little bits of neglect here and there. In many ways, the Christian life isn’t complicated—though not necessarily easy.

Salvation itself is simple: repentance and faith. Our relationship with Christ is simple: trust and obedience—and He Himself gives us the power to obey! But so often, the simplest, most basic tasks are the first to be neglected, and soon we find ourselves entangled again by the “weights” we had already laid aside.

Dear Reader, take a look around you and ask God to open your eyes to the spiritual clutter in your life. Take those simple steps of obedience to put it away and let the Holy Spirit help you tidy up, then get up and keep running. Find joy today in the freedom of running unencumbered!

“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 3:13-14