Pack up! Move out!

I have moved a lot. I was born and raised in Toledo, OH. Then I lived in Indiana. Then in Chicago, IL. I moved 4 times in Chicago in 3 years. Now I live in the DC Metro area, and I've moved 3 times in 2 years. Like I said, I have moved a lot.

And every time I move, I throw things away. Usually, it's junk I know I don't need. But often, it's stuff that I once deemed to be "important" and that has outlived its importance and usefulness and needs to be in the garbage. The dumpster was always its destiny, but I kept delaying it. The following is a list of things that stick in my mind as stuff I had a hard time letting go of:

1. Red Pants - So once upon a time,  I bought a pair of red pants. They fit great, they looked good.  But when I got them home, I couldn't think of a single thing to wear with the red pants. Then I couldn't even envision myself wearing the red pants out of the house. I kept those pants for 7 years, never wore them once before I put them in a donation bag (will anyone want those pants?).
   
   
2. Get-Well-Soon Posters - When I was sick, a bunch of my friends made me get-well-soon posters. When I had them, I hung them up all over my house, as a source of encouragement. They hung for a LONG time. When I moved, I lovingly packed them up into a box to my next home. I never took them out to look at them, but I liked having them there. I kept those for 15 months.
   
   
3. Letters from my Ex-Bff - This was my first big purge. These letters filled up a box (not of the shoebox variety). That was my first deep friendship, and we talked every day, multiple times a day...via little folded-up-origami-style notes that we passed to each other in the halls, or stuffed in each others locker slits. At one point, the friendship ended (badly), but I still valued the way it began in junior high, so sometimes...I read them, reminisced, and dwelt on all the feelings that created. I was 23 years old when I threw those letters away.
   
   
4. TiVo - TiVo lost its usefulness (for me) when the channels switched from 1/2 analog, 1/2 digital to ALL digital. That was a prob. Then I got Fios, and Fios goes to sleep, and TiVo can't wake it up...so I came home to lots of recordings of "Press the MENU button to view Fios cable." It was a disaster, but I still kept it b/c it held so many recorded TV moments (i.e. the episode of Guiding Light when Tammy dies). I just threw that out and got DVR.

And there are so many other things that I've thrown out but didn't want to. Stuff that had sentimental value. Many of these items had been holding on to me, more than I'd been holding on to them. Sometimes they represented a relationship that I should have gotten over long ago. Sometimes they represented an obligation, that I still thought I might make good on. Sometimes they represented memories that depict a me that no longer exists, or that are best forgotten. And sometimes they were just pieces of my past that I didn't want to forget.

But every time I move, I throw such things away.

And you know what? I never miss them. Sometimes I throw stuff in the trash, and I see it in there and think: I can still get it out! And that's when I immediately take it to the dumpster, or immediately throw something gross on top of it (like spaghetti) to keep myself from cracking. But once it's gone...I don't find myself wishing it was in my possession.

What's the point?

THE POINT

Sometimes the things we hold onto go beyond "stuff"in our apartment. There's something in your life that was (1) never "you" in the first place, it never quite felt right but you kept on with it; (2)  something that had served its purpose, and was no longer of use; (3) a reminder of pain, of loss, and of mistakes that have to be forgiven; (4) made obsolete by better alternatives, but you stubbornly held on to it. I'm talking about the broken relationships, habits, sins, negative thoughts, and crazy behaviors that should have been long gone. God is moving you, but you're dragging a trailer of "stuff." So we need to develop a new spiritual habit: every time you "move", throw something away. Scripture says so:

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?... - Isaiah 43:18-19

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.  - Philippians 3:13-14


When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. - 1 Corinthians 13:11

There is a time for everything,  and a season for every activity under the heavens:  a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build - Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

I really like the last one, because sometimes you're tearing down what you've built. Sometimes you're uprooting what you've planted! It's easy to tear down someone else junk, but my own? There is a time for that.

I think I'm ready to move spiritually, but I have boxes upon boxes of crap that I need to jettison from my life. I'm praying that I'm ready. What have you been moving with you from place to place? Is it time to let it go? I bet we won't miss that junk.

Food for thought.