Clean Out Your Spiritual Junk
Cleaning out closets is not a chore I particularly love, but I do love the feeling I get when the chore is done. The purging of all the useless junk that has been taking up space feels good. It feels like a burden has been lifted. Old clothes, items not needed anymore, random papers and objects are gone. In their place is a clean, organized area.
Imagine the burden that lifts when we get rid of unwanted and unneeded items from our spiritual and emotional lives as well.
Dump What You Don’t Need
Having doubts, fears, and anxiety does not make you a bad Christian. However, we should do our best to not let our doubts, fears, and anxiety become bigger than God. (Note: sometimes we cannot do this alone. For severe anxiety and depression, please seek help from a professional counselor.)
The Lord is not afraid of our doubts, and he wants to calm our fears and anxieties. We just have to let him. We will have to do this more than once. Just like those random items that keep piling up in our closets, doubts, fears, and anxieties tend to come back. We are human. This is what happens. This is why we need the Lord! Through his strength, we can conquer our doubts, fears, and insecurities daily.
We need to make a habit of talking to the Lord. Our habit does not have to look like anyone else’s. Yes, a quiet time in a comfy chair with a mug of coffee or tea, worship music softly playing, my Bible, highlighters, pen, and notebook at the ready would be lovely, but how often is this real life?
Real life is often messy and not lovely. Therefore, our “quiet times” may not be lovely. The Lord is not concerned with aesthetics, though. He is concerned with our hearts and with what concerns us. Maybe we don’t know what to say. Sometimes when doubt, fear, and anxiety are creeping in, maybe all we can get out is a groan. Groan to the Lord. He can work with that. He can bring glory to that.
“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans” (Romans 8:26 NIV).
Organize Your Life around the Lord
A common object lesson about fitting what is most important into your life is the exercise of putting sand and rocks into a jar. Sand represents the small and somewhat insignificant things in your life, while the rocks represent the important items. If you fill the jar with sand first, not all of the rocks will fit. However, if you put the rocks in the jar first, the sand will fill in all the cracks around them. The lesson: If you fill up your life with small, insignificant things, you won’t have room for the important things.
As a Christian, the most important thing in our lives should be the Lord. He should be the first rock in the jar at all times. When we are organizing our lives, planning our days and weeks, we need to make sure we put time with the Lord—reading the Bible, praying, worshipping—first. Otherwise, we will find him unintentionally crowded out of our lives.
Praise, worship, and study how you see fit, just make sure to do it! The God of the universe wants to spend time with you! Let him!
Life Is Messy
Life is not perfect, and never will be this side of heaven, but that should not stop us from living the best life we can. The Lord wants us to have good in our lives. We need not cower in fear, but should instead be ready to see the blessings in our lives.
Just like our physical closets need a purge every now and then, we should take inventory of our spiritual and emotional closets and purge the useless items in there as well.
Obviously, we are never going to fully rid ourselves of our spiritual and emotional junk, which is why we need to keep up with our daily “cleaning.” We need to be checking in with the Lord often. We need to give the Lord our junk and our needless items; he wants to take them from us to free us to focus on what is truly important.
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6-7 NIV).
is a writer, blogger, and middle school teacher. She and her husband live in Georgia with their three children. In addition to teaching and writing, Dana loves to read, paddle board, and sometimes run. She blogs about faith, family, and enjoying the everyday life at danaherndon.com.
Photograph © Wonderlane, used with permission
