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My Stuff Has A Diabolical Plan To Take Over My Life

It’s not hard to grasp how easily stuff can pile up and become a problem.

my stuff has a diabolical plan to take over my life

We’ve probably all seen those shows about hoarders. People who only have paths through their homes because their stuff is piled up in every room.

It certainly hasn’t come to that in our home, but I’m seeing how stuff can begin to take over. I’d like to say it’s just at home, but honestly stuff is spilling over at my office as well. 

Some people are naturally neat. They just put things away after they use them. They have a place for everything and it always goes back there. It’s possible that these people have attained to a higher state of being than the rest of us, but it’s more likely that they have other issues that compel them to do what they do. 

For me it happens slowly, one thing at a time. The clutter begins when one thing doesn’t have a place or I don’t have time to put something away. 

I’m not making excuses here, just observations. 

Once one thing doesn’t get back to where it belongs, it kind of opens the door for more things to hang out where they don’t belong. 

In my office, it starts when I don’t know where to put a piece of paper. I realize I’ll need it later so I leave it out as a visible reminder. 

Sometimes I don’t have a file for it or know what I would file it under. The end result is it stays on my desk … and the pile or piles begin. 

On my computer, I’m sometimes in a hurry and don’t put documents I’m working on in a folder … which means they sit on my desktop. Before too long my desktop is filled with un-filed documents, pictures, pdfs and more.

Because one piece of paper or one document doesn’t look messy, you don’t see the disaster that is coming. 

Right now I’m looking at my family room and there is an amplifier for my son’s guitar sitting in a corner. … My son hasn’t lived here for six years, plus he now has an apartment-sized amp for his guitar. 

I originally thought that I might plug my acoustic guitar into it, but that has only happened a few times in those six years. So there it sits and, on top of it, a mic and a few cords. 

That’s just one thing. 

As I scan the room, there are several things – my stuff – that need to be put away, disposed of in some way, or I need to find a place to store them. 

And then there is my roll top desk. That is where I secretly hoard old computer stuff. In this secret place I have hidden away hard drives, cords, cables, disks, CD’s and many things that can’t even plug into a computer anymore. 

If my roll top desk is ever opened up, I am concerned that it would take over the whole basement and I would be left walking on paths to get around my stuff.

Here’s the thing: Not only can we keep physical things hanging around so that they pile up in our homes, we can also keep hurts, sin, unforgiveness and anger piled up in our lives. Just like you have to take action to clear the clutter from your computer, you must take action with the stuff that builds up in your life. The best way to deal with all that is to take it to God and allow Him to help you get your life uncluttered. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you most need to un-clutter right now? Leave your comments and questions below.

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I’m Not Becoming Perfect From My Practice

I realized something about myself the other day: practice doesn’t alway make perfect.

You know the saying. It’s often used to get people to work at something until they improve. I think there are a lot of things this applies to in life, but writing is not one of them – at least not for me.

When I work on my sermon, sometimes I will stand up and work on a white board in my office. I will walk around, pacing back and forth while I think, and then jot things down with my erasable marker.

I’ve been doing this for a while now, but it dawned on me that I’m not getting any better at it. I mean my writing is not any neater or easier to read than it was when I started this method.

If practice makes perfect, why am I not writing perfect “A’s” or “S’s”? My letters still slide into and up against each other. Sometimes I don’t close them off; sometimes I don’t even make a good attempt at forming the letters at all.

It sometimes makes for difficulty reading, though my wife, Lily, and I are pretty used to it and can figure my writing out with only a little frustration at times.

I know there is another saying that someone came up with … probably someone like me who ran into the contradiction with their own handwriting. That person said, “Perfect practice makes perfect.”

I don’t like that phrase very much because the whole idea of practicing is that we aren’t perfect yet. Maybe “proper practice makes perfect” is a better saying.

I can live with that one because clearly I don’t practice my writing properly.

But you know, I’ve found many things in life that also don’t stand up to this nice little slogan. For instance, I’ve been playing the guitar for years, but I’m not significantly better than I was ten years ago.

I also don’t practice very much, but that’s because I don’t see much progress or perfection taking shape when I do practice.

There are some people who practice driving and they don’t get better either. I know because I find myself driving behind them and beside them on the roads all the time!

If the saying, “practice makes perfect” doesn’t really work, my question is, “Should we keep doing things that we aren’t getting perfect at?”

Should I stop trying to play the guitar? … For sure some people should stop driving and leave that task to someone else! But there are some things that if we don’t become perfect at, well, it’s okay. We can get by; we don’t need to be perfect at them.

Writing for me is one of those things. When I see someone with neat handwriting I get a little jealous. But at the end of the day, I will live with the mess I create on my white board.

I will continue to decipher it when I review what I’ve written, and I will just be satisfied that I’m not perfect.

Here’s the thing: God isn’t waiting for us to be perfect; He takes us as we are and then He works on us. He doesn’t quit on us when we fail to make significant progress towards perfection, but He keeps encouraging us on, in spite of our imperfection and failed attempts. Your relationship with God is not one you should quit working on. Accept your deficiencies and keep working at them. One day in heaven you will be perfect.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you been working on that’s frustrating you? Leave your comments below.