May 2017 Articles

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Spiritual Corner

Spiritual Corner: De-cluttering
This weekend proved to be a very busy weekend for the Alexander family. We were moving out of our rented trailer in Dubach and moving all of our belongings into my parents’ garage until our recently-purchased mobile home can be cleaned. Needless to say, the weekend was busy. We had some great help though in our friends Jayde and Jonathan Long and Garrett Smith. Then of course, the real MVPs were my parents, Van and Donnette Bennett. We could have never done it without their tremendous effort and assistance. As we were moving our belongings this weekend, I came to a startling conclusion: Randy and I have SO many more belongings than I had ever imagined. It was crazy! My friend Jayde even commented, “Wow Dana! I never knew you had all of this stuff!” As we all sorted through belongings and boxed up items, I began to find things that I didn’t even remember I had—beautiful décor items and kitchen items, priceless photos and memorabilia. As we scavenged further through the mounds of belongings, I also came to the realization that the majority of what I had was a lot of old JUNK—things that really had no use or purpose and that were just kind of old and dirty. What this weekend made me realize is that I need to have a major de-cluttering of my belongings, where I can pick out the treasured and beautiful items and discard the dirty and junky items. As I sit here and ponder on the clutter I’ve accumulated over the years, I can’t help but recognize the strikingly similar parallels between it and our spiritual lives. Let’s take my own life for example. When I survey my current life and spiritual life, there’s times that I feel so stressed and busy that all I see is a lot of clutter. My brain is cluttered with stresses from work and moving, and appointments that I need to keep. It’s cluttered with worries and expectations I’m afraid of not meeting. It’s cluttered still more with ideas and things I want to do or do better at. If you opened up my brain, that’s what you’d see—a whole lot of CLUTTER. Let’s take this comparison a step further. When I stop to actually pick through the myriad of items in my life, and actually slow down long enough to say a sincere prayer to God, read a portion of His word, or mediate on my spiritual life, well then friends, I start to unearth those beautiful treasures that God has gifted me with. I start to find that sense of compassion I have for others, instead of the lack of patience that comes from a stressed and cluttered life. I find the simple and pure joy of friendship and family, not the fear of disappointment or the obligatory appointments I must keep. I discover all of the valuable blessings and fruits from God that I had hidden away in my heart underneath all of the clutter of the world. You know that clutter I’m talking about. The loads of old, dirty JUNK that we tend to keep in our spiritual lives that we definitely don’t NEED, but that we often can’t seem to let go of. That’s the enemy’s attempt at trapping us. He makes us obsess over that junky clutter, and therefore bury God’s beautiful gifts in our lives. So what I have discovered this weekend is that I not only need to de-clutter my physical home space, but that I need to de-clutter my life daily. I need to purge it of the stressful and worrisome feelings that the devil so skillfully slips into my life. I need to throw out the negative, worldly JUNK, and find and display the beautiful items that God has given me through prayer, His word, and His faithful companionship. So together let’s make a commitment to focus on de-cluttering our spiritual lives. Say goodbye to the useless junk of the world and let’s showcase our God-given treasures! Dana Alexander