Breaking The Chains Biblical Recovery Ministry

Clutter

A friend of mine asked me to pray for them about the clutter in their life as we ended our get together and prepared to leave. In the clutter of my own life I didn’t pray last night even though I sure intended to. This morning when I woke I began my morning prayers and lifted my friend to God.

            This is what He began to minister to me so I’m writing. He showed me what clutter does in our homes and it doesn’t matter how useful or how decorative this clutter is. It gets in the way even when placed in out of the way storage. It’s all we see wherever we look. In time we get tired of it but we fail to remove it. We fail to remove it because it’s a part of our life. We fail to remove it because it has become so a part of our life that we don’t want to remove it. We hold onto it… why?

            Let me give a small example. In the kitchen is that drawer full of cooking utensils and one of the most used are knives. But they get dull; you’re tired of sharpening them. Some even have a tip broke off yet it’s still in the drawer cause it can still be used to cut and you force yourself to use it once a month to justify keeping it… clutter!

             In time you receive a new set of knives because someone heard you talking about how you could use a new set for various needs while cooking. So when you open that drawer full of the old knives to replace them with the new knives, we’ll end up doing one of two actions. We’ll either push all those knives to the back of the drawer so we can put the new ones up front. Or we move the old knives to another drawer full of other stuff spending the time making room in that drawer for old knives to fit.

            Either case, those old knives will begin to get in the way. Those old knives will begin to get mixed in with the new knives. In time those old knives find their way “back” into the regular knife drawer and the old is mixed in with the new and we’re frustrated because we have to sort through the clutter to get to the new knives. In time we don’t even know which knives are the new knives we’re to enjoy.

            Where did we fail and thus have this problem?

            Now, in our heart are all the old emotions caused by hurts we experienced in our past. These emotions clutter up in our heart so that even when there is a change for good happening in ours lives the pain remains because it’s still in the heart. We move it around inside of us in the attempt to make room for new emotions to fill us. Emotions we want, as this change for good happens around us. When problems begin to be solved that we surrender over to God, there needs to be room for the new emotions to go as He begins to make change and address the problems.

            Like the example with the knives and my final question in that part… we failed to let the old knives go. We held onto them. We didn’t “throw” them in the trash and get rid of them. They began to mix in with the new and are in the way of enjoying the use of the new knives. Or they were placed in another drawer and they are still there. Maybe out of site but they are still there.

            If God takes a hurt away from you, where is the room for the new emotions that will begin to be experienced, to go? If God is to bring new order into your life where is the joy to fit within your heart that is still filled with the old emotions?

Once the healing begins, that joy you could be feeling immediately mixes in with the emotions of the past. These new emotions that should be joyous blend in with the old painful emotions. The more room taken up by past emotions you have held inside of you, the less room the new emotions have to grow and blossom and allow you to reap the enjoyment that they should be producing.

            I can give examples of what should be done but I’m not. All I can do is write up what God places on my heart to write and when people read, I pray that they are ministered by the words.

            We need to stop forcing the old into the corners of our heart; instead we need to toss the old out. This doesn’t happen over night and in many cases will be done day by day. We do this by giving to God one problem at a time and we must be patient as He ministers to that problem in His time as He works His way. Once He is done and there is a cleared space in our heart we can allow new joy to fill that space as we offer up the next problem. This is cleaning, “one drawer at a time” J and we gain much. Not all at once and we gain little.

The scripture I’m led to for this blog are:

Proverbs 4:23 (NKJV)

23 Keep your heart with all diligence,
      For out of it spring the issues of life.

Matthew 6:33-34 (NKJV)

33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

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