Clutter

We've got family coming to visit and I thought it would be a good idea to clean up my home office a little. As I looked around I saw my 2007 tax file laying in the floor. It's been several weeks since I had my taxes figured and that should have been filed. Over a year ago I bought a new Smartphone. I still see my old one laying on the desk. I attended a meeting in January and I have a paper on my desk that needs to be added to the computer file I started while there. I could go on, but you get the picture. There is a lot of clutter in my office and I need to take a serious stab at taking care of it.

As I looked around I was reminded that our lives often get cluttered. It doesn't happen all at once. Like my office, it's a piece here and an event there. Instead of dealing with it at the moment we put it off until later. Then, one day we look around and marvel how cluttered our lives have become. And then we understand why we've had difficulty hearing from God lately.

There's a parable in the Bible that reminds one of the need to deal with clutter. Jesus told the parable of the soils and one of the soils he talked about was the soil that was covered with thorns. There the seed could not produce an adequate crop because it was choked. (See Luke 4:1-20)

In the explanation of the soils Jesus explained that the seed in the thorn-choked soil represented the word of God in the lives of people who are cluttered with the things of this world. The word never adequately grows in their lives.

As I thought about my office I also thought about my life. I found some clutter there that needs to be cleaned up. I'm trying to take care of that because I want God's word to take root and produce a good harvest in my life. I hope that's your desire, too.