Space

Space

There is another serious problem I have seen under the sun. Hoarding riches harms the saver.

ONE YEAR, we decided to renovate the space above our garage. It had built-in cabinets, two useful desks, exercise equipment—and a whole lot of junk. Like a scene from a reality TV episode, the room was stacked high with reams of paper, piles of clothes in the wrong size, forlorn office equipment, childhood memorabilia, boxes of photos, odds and ends, and various other things that didn’t fit anywhere else. Honestly, it looked like a wasteland of forgotten items. Whenever friends would visit, I would hurriedly toss the extra stuff lying around my house into the room and close the door firmly behind me.

For many years, it remained in a perpetual cycle of cleanup and mess. When we finally decided it was time to clean up and split the space, putting up a wall and turning it into two separate rooms, I dreaded it. Overhauling the space felt overwhelming. But after hours of cleaning, countless trips to local charities and the garbage, we finally had two beautiful, usable rooms. What a relief!

Not all of us have messy spaces—at least, externally. But how often do our internal lives resemble that overcrowded room? We clutter up our hearts and minds with an overfull schedule or tasks we hope to get to “when we have time,” trying desperately to feel safe or worthy by clinging to things that take up space without adding value. We box ourselves in with bad decisions and shelve regrets we don’t want to face. Perhaps we leave only a small walkway for Jesus, asking him to step over our messes or ignore parts of ourselves. Unfortunately, all of those things only serve to block our way to experiencing true freedom.

The Bible cautions that hoarding harms the person who does it. I can’t think of a more apt description of the harm that befalls us when we fail to let Jesus work in each and every space within our lives, bringing life and fresh air and freedom to the things we’ve been captive to or felt weighted down by. He longs to clear our clutter and—through him—help us experience new life.

Lord, thank you that you free us from the things that clutter up our lives. Help us trust you with the cleanup process. Amen.

-Kristin

One Good Step: Take an inventory of yourself. What areas of your life do you need to create more space in?