Happy 2016 to you!  These first few days have been great.  While I haven’t come up with my “one word” for the year or laid out a plan for my new eating habits, I have managed to pack up two boxes worth of books from my bookshelves to give away and cleared out several boxes of miscellaneous whatevers sitting around the house.  The kitchen junk drawer and my desk junk drawer is unjunked.  The hubs cleaned out his closet and the boys both went through their rooms and got rid of excess and got organized.  I tackled my closet yesterday and got rid of a few pairs of shoes, two piles of clothes and a bunch of old purses.  The house feels lighter and less cluttered already and let me tell you, it makes my day!

I’ll get around to the word and the food thing here shortly, but for now, I’m thrilled to pieces with the reduction of stuff.  I told my other half day before yesterday that as far as I was concerned he could back the truck up to the front door and just haul everything out and we could just sit on pillows on the floor for all I care.  I’m telling you, I’m about over it, ya’ll.  We just have too much stuff.  And the more stuff we have have, the more stuff I have to dust and keep clean.

Why do we do that?  Just keep on having all this stuff.  I’ve got like 20 t-shirts in my drawer and I probably wear two of them.  I probably have 10 Pyrex dishes and look, I’ve only got the one oven.  How many casseroles can a person cook at one time for crying out loud?  And do not even get me started on the number of towels sitting in my linen closet.

Why do we hang onto stuff?  I mean I guess partly it’s because I suspect as soon as I sell it at a yard sale or give it away, I’ll need it five minutes later.  That and I suppose the sentimental value of a lot of it is what keeps it sitting on my shelves.  I just hate to part with some of those things that belonged to grandparents, or things my kids made, or things that are pretty, or old things, or things someone gave me, or…well, shoot.  I could come with just about any reason to keep any of it I guess.  I save all these little things, but if the truth be told, with some of it, I couldn’t tell you where it came from or why I keep it.  I just know I’ve had it for a long time so it must be special, right?

I think we can be like that spiritually and emotionally too though.  We hold to all these beliefs about ourselves that we have because either somebody said it to us or its just been an attitude we’ve accepted about ourselves.  We believe lies about who we are and those lies just become reinforced over time by habit or low self-esteem.  We allow our spiritual lives to get cluttered up with half-truths or outright deceptions about who God is and what His word says and we never actually go and check it out for ourselves.  We just take somebody else’s interpretation and sit it on our shelf without ever seeking the validity of it.  And so instead of stopping and really taking inventory of all these beliefs we have, we just keep dusting them off and allowing them to sit around inside our heads and hearts.

And so while with the new year often comes a cleaning out of closets and cabinets and pantries, maybe we can also remember to take stock of what we have sitting around in our hearts and minds.  If we’re gonna get a fresh start, lets start from the inside out!

Let’s take inventory!  Are there lies you are believing about yourself that you need to clear out?  Are there things about God and His Word that you have accepted as truth that aren’t?  Maybe spend some time over the next day or two seeking answers to those questions.