Whatever

What is the state of your closet?  Yes, THAT closet: The one that is big and roomy and seems to fill up with all of the unmatched, unwanted, and forgotten stuff in your life. 

I actually like to clean closets. I love to pull everything out and sort it into three piles: the keepers, the give-away pile, and the stuff I don’t really want but am not yet willing to part with.  The keepers and give-away piles are easy.  We pull close what we love and dispose of what is bad or unnecessary. It is the stuff that I don’t really want but am not willing to part with that is difficult. 

 My heart is the same way. It is easy to keep the good stuff close to my heart, and it’s pretty easy to let go of what is glaringly bad in my life.  It is difficult to part with the stuff that I don’t really want but have an emotional attachment to.   Sometimes I am emotionally attached to my feeling of anger toward someone.  It could be that I have unrealistic expectations for my spouse.  Maybe I am attached to a need to control everything and everyone around me.  We can become emotionally attached to our feelings, sins, desires or entitlements and these are the very things that God wants us to dispose of.

I think of a closet as a place where things are stored and forgotten. The closet space in my heart, however, works differently.  What I store in my heart may seem put away and out of sight, but it will inevitably affect my life through my attitude and actions,

What should I be storing in the personal closet space of my heart?  Philippians 4:8 tells us to dwell on the whatever’s:  "Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”  If  what I am storing  in my closet is not part of God’s list of whatever’s, it is probably something I should dispose of.  This week I plan on examining the closet space in my heart and see what I'm storing there.  I plan to embrace the keepers, and add at least one of the things I am holding tightly to, to the give-away pile.