2 Little "C" words

Clutter and compromise...two little C words that can play games with your head and cause chaos in your heart.
     The man who used to live next door was a hoarder - truly. He had so much Junk that there was no floor space where you could actually see floor. There was at least 4 feet of trash in every room, including bathrooms and kitchen. It overflowed into both front and back yard. When the city sued him to clean it up he refused, saying it was all valuable to him and therefore he didn't have to. And to tell the truth, some of it was valuable. He had beautiful antique dishes in the midst of 500 plastic salt and pepper shakers. Recordings of historical speeches within stacks of hard rock albums. A true antique dealer would have had field day!
     When his guardians finally made him move, and they needed to clean out the house, they had a $10 a box garage sale for 4 solid weeks and still took at least 10 commercial dumpster loads out of there. To find the treasures you had to watch out for rats, and even a resident raccoon. It wasn't pretty!
      So what does this have to do with Christianity? Well, in so many ways we are like my neighbor...
We go off into the world and begin to fill our lives with things - all kinds of things that are good and bad. We compromise on what to keep and what to get rid of. We gather "activities" which look good at first but are really junk.We collect habits, thinking we're in control and can get rid of them whenever we choose to, but we never do. We refuse to let go of past hurts and failures. We hold on dearly to our rights to be angry or hurt. We clutter up our schedules with things of little or no value while the priceless treasure get buried under tons of misplaced priorities.
     The insidious thing is that hoarders start so innocently. One thing here, one thing there. Broken things come in with the idea that it will be fixed later. Something else comes in because it has sentimental value but is no longer usable or needed.  Things pile up in our lives but instead of cleaning up we just move over until we're inundated with the worthless, broken and rotting "treasures" of the world. The good things of God get buried - our gifts, talents, abilities, even our ministries and time. We become slaves to the unimportant until there's no room left for Kingdom business or the treasures of heaven, both in this world and eternity!
     It's time...time to reevaluate priorities and get rid of things that clutter our days with no value or purpose. Time to look at activities and habits, keeping the good and discarding the bad. Time to sort through our lives for hurts and failures that we need to let go of, and bring in things that are lovely, pleasing, and beautiful. Time to clean up and de-clutter so that God can bless our lives with His purposes, His plans, & His promises.
     It won't happen in a day, or a week, or maybe even a year, but if we keep working at it little by little we will see change...and that will encourage us to keep at it.  Galatians 6:9