Amongst the Clutter

I spent part of the morning wrestling with technology as I installed a new flat-screen monitor for my computer. While I was back among the wires and cables (having forgotten a flashlight, of course), I was thinking about how cluttered my life had become. It's not cluttered in the sense of junk all around the house or the garage loaded to the rafters. I don't have to call the folks from Clean House to come and do an intervention.

The clutter begins in my soul. I look around the landscape of my life and look at the large number of projects and promises, resolutions and reminders that have gone undone. I always have good intentions, but the in-box never seems to empty. As one wag put it, it's like I'm rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Now, this could be cause for despair. I could ignore my inner thoughts with peanut butter cookies and ice cream. I could bury myself in a favorite book. Or, I could slowly expose this condition to One who loves and delights in me.

Although it seems silly, one of the games most people play with God is that of hide-and-go-seek. The game is as old as Adam and Eve, yet we persist in thinking that if we don't verbalize or think about issues; then, God doesn't know.

He knows. He knows and He's waiting for us to come and talk to Him about it. It is in this conversation that the tangled lines of our life relax and unknot. The desperation begins to ebb and we begin to see a clear path.

Now the difficult part is the next step ... for we must now begin to do what we've been talking about. It starts with a successful first step. The step does not have to be hurried because it needs to be successful. Then it needs to be followed with a second and a third step. Soon, one finds themselves walking toward the goal they always desired.