De-Cluttering Our Lives

(Written at 6 AM on Tuesday Morning)
I like a clean desk. I think I work better with a clean desk. The cliché is not biblical but it sounds like it: “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” So why is my desk so messy?

Currently on my desk are the following items:
• a wrapper from the new computer keyboard I had to purchase (I think the old one might have gotten messed up from crumbs and other assorted things being dropped on it—possibly from eating too many snacks at my desk these last four plus years. Shhhh… to tell our tech guys at church or Karla),
• last Sunday’s worship folder,
• the Michigan license plate holder I received for Christmas three weeks ago (You might be asking: “What’s a license plate holder doing on your desk? It is supposed to be on a car, not on a desk.” Good question.),
• a Christmas card,
• a rock—it was from a sermon I preached where the rock was meant to be like an altar to remind me of the blessings of God. I almost didn’t see it because it was buried underneath a bunch of stuff. (Hmmm… I think there is another sermon in there…)
• a thank you note,
• housing receipts from the last year,
• several books that I used for last Sunday’s sermon,
• the electric outlet adapter set that my friend Mark Lail loaned me for the mission trip to Africa (OK, that’s really bad—it has been sitting on my desk ready to return to Mark since June—JUNE!!!!-- Mark, I apologize and will return it to you soon!),
• napkins from yesterday’s breakfast of champions (a McDonald’s sausage burrito),
• (In the gross but true category) I see lurking behind my computer monitor a finger nail that I clipped who knows when—it’s just laying there laughing at me.
• the wedding program from last Friday’s wedding,
• a McDonald’s “States Avenue” game piece from the Monopoly game from last fall (I didn’t even play the game, I never play those games. So why do I have a game piece on my desk and who put it there?),
• other assorted books, notes, reports and two copies of last Sunday’s sermon—all that should have been filed long before now.
Why do I have junk on my desk, when I really work better with no junk on my desk? I didn’t wake up one morning and say, “”Hmmm… I think I would like to pile my desk high with stuff.” No, it happened one wrapper, one book, and one report at a time.

My desk became messy, the same way that our lives get too cluttered. No one starts out and says, “Wow, I would really like a too busy life: too busy for my family, too busy for devotion time with God, too busy to be effective at work, too busy to look after my health. Being too busy is good.” Who says that? No one I know.

But many of us are too busy. We add something here and something there. Usually they are good things. We have trouble saying “No.” We like to please people—again who doesn’t? So we say yes to this project and yes to the kids wanting to be in bazillion different activities, and then there is the church stuff that we “have to do,” and blah, blah, blah. Until we wake up one morning exhausted from our cluttered life.

Maybe there is a better way.

(Written at 7 AM on Thursday morning)
My desk is cleaner now. The junk has been tossed (including the McDonald’s game piece and the finger nail—who’s laughing now!); the books are where they belong, the adapter is still there but soon Mark will have it returned to him. I feel much better with a cleaner, tidier desk. I am sure I will be more productive!

How did I clean it up? The same way I messed it up—only in reverse. I took care of one item at a time. How will you un-clutter your life—same way: One item at a time.

David recognized that we have this one life to live (sounds like a soap opera), when he wrote:
“LORD, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.
Remind me that my days are numbered—
how fleeting my life is.
5 You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand.
My entire lifetime is just a moment to you;
at best, each of us is but a breath.” Psalm 39:4-5 NLT

Today you will have 24 hours. Me too. Let’s not try to cram 28 hours into our day, instead let’s do the important things, let go of the unimportant and in all things live our lives to the glory of God.