I’m concerned about the state of my garage as we approach the colder weather. 

When I grew up, my family home never had a garage. The car was always in the driveway, exposed to the elements. 

So, when I finally got a house with a garage, I decided that I was going to park my car in that garage. 

That sounds like a no-brainer, but if you drive around neighbourhoods you will see how many homes with garages have cars parked outside in the driveways – ALL … YEAR … LONG! 

In the middle of the winter when I’m driving to work in the morning I feel sorry for those folks who have a foot of snow on the top of their cars. Their windows are all frosted over while my car has no sign that there was snow in the forecast overnight.

I like parking my car in my garage and I don’t want that to change. But over the last six months, my garage has gotten smaller. 

What I mean is, it’s filling up with stuff other than my car. 

We used to keep two cars in our garage but, even if we had two cars now, we couldn’t do it. The one bay is filled with stuff.

That’s the reason so many homes with garages have cars parked in the driveways – they have too much stuff to park in their garages! 

I guess it’s cheaper than renting a storage unit … though my guess is that most of the people who are not parking their cars in their garages already have storage units filled to the brim.

The problem is people have too many things that they don’t need or use, but want to hang on to. 

That’s not my problem. 

My problem is that I have kids who have stuff they are not using and have nowhere to store it. They noticed we had a free storage unit attached to our home and took advantage. 

It’s not climate-controlled, but it’s dry.

And now my wife is starting to add to the collection of items we are storing in the unit. 

We have been doing some cleaning out of things we don’t need or want anymore. However, some of those things are not finding their way to new homes, the garbage dump or a donation store. 

They are just making it to the garage where they are starting to look like they fit in there really well. 

As I survey the items in our garage, I’m thinking that if I rearranged them a bit I could turn them into a nice little living area that we could rent out to someone.

They would have to put up with a bit of carbon-monoxide in the morning and evening when the car next to them was leaving and returning from trips … but we could reduce the rent. 

All we need now is a hot plate and a mini fridge. Anyone got spares they want to donate to the cause?

Here’s the thing: Clutter finds its way into our lives and it’s easy to add to the clutter without taking time to evaluate it. Clutter can be sin we don’t deal with, interests that fill our hours, or things that demand our time. If your life is too cluttered you won’t have much time for God – He’ll be parked outside in the driveway. Take some time today to survey the clutter in your life and make some room to bring God in from the cold.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What is the biggest source of your clutter? Leave your comments below.