If you have a junk drawer somewhere in your house or maybe your place of employment...I'm impressed! Why impressed, you ask? I'm impressed that you, unlike me, are able to keep the clutter in your life limited to such a small space. It is common knowledge among my friends and family that I don't have a junk drawer - I have a junk van. That's right. A drawer will not contain my "messy" side so I use my minivan instead. I was sharing just the other day that I FINALLY cleaned it out and took it to the car wash. I'm ashamed to say that I had Halloween decorations in the back of my vehicle. That's how long it had been since my last van-cleaning.
As I've said before, parallels can often be drawn from our physical life to our spiritual one. This morning in my devotions, God used a couple of different sources to remind me that my van is not the only place where litter gathers. My mind can also be used as a junk collector if I'm not careful. As I was contemplating I Peter 5:8 which says, "be alert and of sober mind", I started thinking about the things in my life that work against that objective. I asked God to reveal anything that might be cluttering up my mind and preventing me from living the life He has called me to live.
His answer was prompt. One obvious source of this "junk" is that little contraption my mom used to call the "boob tube". Although I don't watch as much TV as some, I have gotten into a bad habit of ending each day with one of my few DVRed shows. The problem is that these are not uplifting, God-honoring programs. It is hard for me to admit that these shows have a way of entering my psyche and working against many of the principles found in God's Word. Satan uses these various episodes to undermine the truth I should be clinging to and before I even realize it, I'm believing a lie.
It isn't easy but I've accepted that it is time for me to clean out the residue left from these shows. As I told my sister (and accountability partner) my immediate plan is to cut out ALL television for 7 weeks. My prayer is that at the end of those 7 weeks, I will have learned how to live without this unhealthy diversion. Instead of allowing it to numb me at the end of the work day, I plan to be more productive and active. Who knows, maybe I will not only de-clutter my mind, but strengthen some of my relationships and even lose some weight in the process! (Eating and TV-watching go hand in hand, you know.)
My challenge to my readers is this - ask God what is creating clutter in your spiritual walk and what you can do to clean it out so that together we can live like God calls us to in I Peter. And don't forget the importance of accountability. I grant anyone reading this permission to ask me about my TV watching and if you'd like accountability in return, I'll be happy to give it. Together we can do it!
As I've said before, parallels can often be drawn from our physical life to our spiritual one. This morning in my devotions, God used a couple of different sources to remind me that my van is not the only place where litter gathers. My mind can also be used as a junk collector if I'm not careful. As I was contemplating I Peter 5:8 which says, "be alert and of sober mind", I started thinking about the things in my life that work against that objective. I asked God to reveal anything that might be cluttering up my mind and preventing me from living the life He has called me to live.
His answer was prompt. One obvious source of this "junk" is that little contraption my mom used to call the "boob tube". Although I don't watch as much TV as some, I have gotten into a bad habit of ending each day with one of my few DVRed shows. The problem is that these are not uplifting, God-honoring programs. It is hard for me to admit that these shows have a way of entering my psyche and working against many of the principles found in God's Word. Satan uses these various episodes to undermine the truth I should be clinging to and before I even realize it, I'm believing a lie.
It isn't easy but I've accepted that it is time for me to clean out the residue left from these shows. As I told my sister (and accountability partner) my immediate plan is to cut out ALL television for 7 weeks. My prayer is that at the end of those 7 weeks, I will have learned how to live without this unhealthy diversion. Instead of allowing it to numb me at the end of the work day, I plan to be more productive and active. Who knows, maybe I will not only de-clutter my mind, but strengthen some of my relationships and even lose some weight in the process! (Eating and TV-watching go hand in hand, you know.)
My challenge to my readers is this - ask God what is creating clutter in your spiritual walk and what you can do to clean it out so that together we can live like God calls us to in I Peter. And don't forget the importance of accountability. I grant anyone reading this permission to ask me about my TV watching and if you'd like accountability in return, I'll be happy to give it. Together we can do it!
1 comments:
If you just wait a couple weeks, the current season of television will be over, and you can go seven weeks without missing anything but crappy summer shows and reruns.
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