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Wow! What a whirlwind this last month and a half has been! First, I’m sitting in my office casually thinking about a nice, calm, serene, and peaceful Christmas season for my family and me; and then, all of the sudden, I am trying to collect every conceivable size and strength of cardboard box known to man.
After that, Donna and I began the process of looking for a new house while trying to put all of our belongings found in our current house into those said boxes. Couple that with basketball practices, Bible studies, dance rehearsals, karate practices, and cello lessons. You can understand why I’ve been running on caffeine and adrenaline for several weeks. Whew! “Calgon, take me away!”
One of the biggest challenges in all of this has been going through all the things we have accumulated since the last time we moved, 5½ years ago. When I look at something as I start to put it in a box, I think to myself, “Why did I keep that?” “Do I really need this? “What is this, anyway?” All of it in many ways is just clutter and stuff, stuff that clogs up space in my life. I wish now I had dealt with it when I first acquired it or never picked it up at all.
Life is like that sometimes, isn’t it? We acquire things. We “pick up” stuff.
We acquire names and identities in our lives. Some of them are hurtful and we never can seem to escape them. We do something ill advised either out of youthful ignorance or selfish pride. From then on, we are known by that one event. Or, we pick up a habit that seems innocuous at first, but then it grows into something we can no longer control. In fact, it begins to control us. In the end our lives are cluttered with these “things” and we wonder, “Why did I start this to begin with?” “What was I thinking?” “How did my life get to be this way?”
To avoid that, we need to avoid the pitfalls of ill advised actions and think twice. We should think to ourselves, “Is this something Christ would be proud of? Would he want this to be a part of my life?” However, if the damage has already been done, we need to go through the cabinets and closets of our lives and begin to clean out the stuff of our lives and throw away those identities. We must put aside those old ways of doing things. We as the body of Christ are to find our identity in Christ and put on a new life, a life that is of Christ and filled with Christ. We need to de-clutter our souls.
Yes, we are trying to clean out stuff as we pack up our lives. But it is a joy. For I know that God is putting us on this path to serve his kingdom alongside you. Friends I’m looking forward to our time at Lanes Chapel. May God bless you as we all continue on this great adventure.
In Christ,
Jeff Gage |
