Last night as I went to sleep I had a huge pile of clean laundry on my bed. I was exhausted so I moved it to another location rather than rectifying the situation by folding the clothes and putting them away. (Okay – the other location was the floor!) As I lay down I said to myself, I hope I don't die in my sleep - I would hate to have someone step over that pile of clothes to get to my body! In the moment it made me laugh, but then I thought of the dirty dishes in the sink and the pile of papers on the floor by my chair. Anyone who has ever lived with me knows about this pile by my chair. I actually have a box in my bedroom that was packed up by a friend when I moved in May. It has written on the side "Around The Chair". She gently gathered all of my "stuff" and placed in this box so I would know where to find it. The sad part is that it is still not unpacked 7 months later.
We often let things “pile up” in our lives. We gather “stuff” that we don’t need and create new places to store it when we run out of shelves. We just passed through another Black Friday and I found myself looking through the sale ads wondering what goodies I might miss out on if I did not wake at the crack of dawn to go hunt and conquer. But you know – my life doesn’t have room for more “stuff”. In fact, if those boxes in my bedroom are any indication, there is still a lot of “stuff” that needs to be thrown out. And it is not only the acquisition of physical, tangible things.
Do you ever let grudges build up and take space in your soul? Are there people that you haven’t forgiven? Do they know it? I think that people know, deep inside, when you have something against them. Or sometimes we think that another person has a grudge against us. We put that weight on them and, because we never talk, we don’t know whether there is anything between us that needs to be cleaned up or not. Either way, it is an unpacked box that one of you will be liable to trip over when the other one is gone.
How about those around you that you love dearly? Do they know it? Have you told each person in your life how grateful you are for them? Or do you let those words pile up in your heart and mind and never let them spill out on the ones who need to hear them? I have known the emptiness in my soul when a loved one passes on to glory and I am left remembering “that time” when I wanted to say something and didn’t? I don’t want to leave one person wondering how I felt about them. I will say “I Love You” to people that don’t even know what to do with that statement because their culture does not speak those words freely. I never miss an opportunity to give my grandchildren hugs and kisses. Why? Because one day it will be the last time I do. And I don’t know when that time will be.
If I see God-sized potential in you, I am going to say it. I am not going to tell you this is God’s plan for your life, but I want you to know that I believe you “can”. I think we often sit back and watch the lives of those around us and hope for the best. But do we tell them what we see? Do we say to that young man in church “I love watching you worship because your worship leads me into the throne-room.” Do you say to the young woman who just corralled 50 kids and got them to listen to a story that “I think you have a gift for inspiring young minds.” I have begun speaking these words because I want them to know what a gift that is and maybe, just maybe God will use that in their lives. Maybe He has already been drawing their heart toward a calling and your words are the catalyst for taking the next step. AND maybe, just maybe, they were “weary in well-doing” and needed some encouragement. And yet, we often isolate our words and tuck them away somewhere to take up space but do no good.
And what about the bins full of words that we do say? The ones that do harm to another soul. How many words have you spewed without thinking? Or worse yet, spewed with malice? We are supposed to take our words captive, and yet we often give them free reign to march on the heads and hearts of those around us, leaving spirits bruised and crushed in the aftermath.
No debt, no "junk" in the closet, no broken relationships that were not mended, no unspoken love. There are so many areas that get messy. And the “merry maids” are not going to miraculously appear to clean it all up. But as you begin to live with the end in mind, you can begin to pick up one pile at a time. Sort through it. Keep the good (or give it away). Throw out the useless. Polish up the finest. And learn to live without messes.