OK, we aren’t doing “Spring Cleaning” in the traditional sense of the term. It is spring and we are cleaning….Purging might be a better word. With a move coming sometime in the near future, we decided that we needed to get the house spruced up and ready to show to potential buyers, but then we realized that we really couldn’t do that if every inch of the house is filled with stuff. We aren’t really good at Spring Cleaning and most years we skip it altogether. We do have at least one Garage Sale each year and felt pretty good about the fact that we were getting rid of what we didn’t need on a regular basis….notice I said “felt”! We no longer feel good about our pattern of de-cluttering! We have hauled so much stuff out of our house this past weekend that I honestly have begun to doubt the laws of physics. There is no way that all of the stuff now staged in the basement, for either the garage sale, or the move, could have come from the bedrooms of my children. Its not just the children either. I have seen things that I didn’t realize I still owned. I find myself saying “so that’s where that went” at least 20 times a day. Honestly when I look at the garbage bags on the back porch, ready for the dump, and then peer into the basement and see the mountain of stuff that was worth saving, I really have to wonder how in the world the upper story of our house did not collapse and kill us all!
The worst part of all of this for a pastor is that you can’t help but see a lesson in this (and every) experience. At one time everything that we own was something that we wanted, or believed that we needed. I can remember some of the toys that are now in the garage sale pile being at the very top of the kids Christmas Lists. I can still hear them begging and pleading with us that if they did not get this toy or gadget or whatever, that life would certainly end for them. I can hear them praying at bedtime for the very toys that now lie broken on the back deck waiting for their fateful trip to the dump.
Worse yet is the fact that I can remember my own desire for some of the things on the various piles. how much I wanted them and believed that they would make life better or more interesting or more productive. I still have pieces of a PDA (its like a smart phone only without the phone, and they weren’t nearly as smart) that I haven’t owned in 10 years. I found tools that I had to have for a project that never made it out of the package, and others that I used once and never looked at again, and don’t even get me started on the exercise equipment!!
The words of Jesus come echoing into my thoughts “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:19 NLT) Most of the things that we have stored up aren’t “treasures” but when we purchased them we sure thought that they were. The things of this life deteriorate over time and fail to bring the satisfaction that we crave. we need to be reminded frequently that “Stuff” does not satisfy, it only leaves you wanting more. Leave it to our Heavenly Father to use a house cleaning session to teach me that the treasures of Heaven are far greater than any treasure we will ever find here on earth.
I can sooo relate to your story! The Matthew 6 words always come to mind, but also, my mother used to remind me to “consider the lilies of the field,” when I thought I needed more clothes, another pair of shoes, etc…. Somehow, these verses didn’t hit home until I was much older!