Spiritual Decluttering: Keep, Share, Toss

Click below to listen to this post about spiritual decluttering on the Candidly Kendra podcast:

A year ago when we were all banished to our living rooms to live out the introvert’s dream of social distancing I promised myself that I would clean. I didn’t. I started a website and a podcast instead.

I parked my bottom on the couch while the world swirled around me in bight colors – mostly the colors of Nerf bullets to be perfectly honest, since my three boys were banished to the living room, too – and I learned about things like “search engine optimization” and “website hosting.”

But I didn’t clean. And the Nerf bullets piled up, and the dust piled up, and one day I looked up and I couldn’t see the floor, or remember for the life of me what color it used to be.

So when it came time to move Steve’s office into Kai’s room, and to move Kai into Teo’s room, and to move Owen from his shared room with Teo into his own man-child room in the basement, I tackled the rearranging, decorating, and decluttering the way I tackle everything – with gusto!

I started on January 1st, and I haven’t put down the dust rag since.

And there’s one thing I’ve learned as I’ve sorted through our stuff: we hold onto relics from the past as though they actually contain our memories. Without question, we tuck knick-knacks away into boxes; we let them clutter our homes while we forget they exist.

But do you know what I think? I think we don’t just do this with knick-knacks. We do it with our beliefs as well.

Maybe it’s time to do some spiritual decluttering!

Keep, Share, Or Toss?

In my experience, if I haven’t spiritually decluttered in a while, God comes along in his attention-getting “whammy” sort of way. He holds my old, rotten beliefs in front of my face and says, “What about this? Do you need this anymore?” Does it bring you joy?, as Marie Kondo would say?

What spiritual junk have you tucked away? It’s cluttering your soul! It stinks! But you wrinkle your nose at your loved ones, at your church – or even your God, thinking why do you smell so bad, not realizing that you’ve allowed that rotten belief to fester in the basement your soul.

So let’s do some spiritual decluttering!

With any good decluttering system, you need three piles: Keep, Donate, and Toss.

Keep

I love this! It brings me joy, and I need to find a new, conspicuous place for it, so I can see it every day!

In my decluttering I came across a cute little painting that I’ve always been proud of. It’s not a masterpiece, but it makes my heart happy. It was living in a box in the basement, but I dusted it off and planted it proudly on my front window sill.

In the same way, there are spiritual concepts that we have loved, that helped us grow. But they’ve been buried in the basement of our souls, collecting dust. We’ve forgotten.

“Remember His wonderful deeds which He has done,
His marvels and the judgments from His mouth,
Youdescendants of Israel His servant,
Sons of Jacob, His chosen ones!“
1 Chronicles 16:12, 13

Let’s pull out those encouraging spiritual insights and bring them to mind once again!

Review your old memory verses – what did you used to love about that verse?
Pick up a book that changed your life – why did this make such a difference for you?
Restart an old spiritual practice that you used to delight in – can you put this back in your schedule?

Donate

This is beautiful! How can I bless someone else with it?

Some of the things I’ve come across in my decluttering have been wonderful things that served my family well, but now I’m ready to share.

So now I’m personally keeping Goodwill in business. It’s someone else’s turn to be blessed by my stuff. (If you stop by the Goodwill at Constitution and Tutt, say “hi” to my stuff for me.)

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Have you let spiritual truths sit unused in the basement of your soul instead of sharing them with others? We do this when we don’t want to presume to teach another person. We think, “who am I?” and keep our mouths shut. But, friends, you are someone who has walked that road before. You’ve learned and grown, and your experiences could be such an encouragement to a younger friend! Share what you’ve learned in humility and love, and it will be appreciated. (Trust me!)

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”
Colossians 3:16 ESV

Is there a beautiful spiritual insight that you’ve kept to yourself? How can you bless another person with it?

Share a book with someone else
Tell a friend about a struggle you experienced and an insight helped you

What spiritual junk have you tucked away? It’s cluttering your soul! It stinks! But you wrinkle your nose at your loved ones, at your church – or even your God, thinking why do you smell so bad, not realizing that you’ve allowed that rotten belief to fester in the basement your soul.

Toss

This is junk! Why have I let this live here? Away you go!

The vast majority of clutter in my basement has been trash. Dirty, ugly, unusable…but we allowed it to take up space in our home. Not anymore! It goes into a trash bag and is immediately exiled from our home.

I’ve noticed that there are two main types of trash in my home: things that someone gave me years ago that I felt compelled to keep, and things I hoarded away for some unknown reason.

These same categories are true for spiritual trash. There are lessons that we’ve learned along the way from other people – a parent, a Sunday School teacher, a pastor who misspoke. We boxed those unbiblical beliefs up and let them form a foundation in the basement of our souls, never reaizing how destructive they were to the Gospel!

But there are also lessons that we hoarded away as a balm for our broken souls – spiritual lies we believed, vows we made to ourselves to protect ourselves after we were hurt, or just plain heresies that made us feel good about ourselves, so we resisted the biblical truth and chose to pack away the lies instead.

“We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.”
2 Corinthians 10:5 ESV

It’s an incredibly uncomfortable thing to look at the trash we’ve lived with for so long. But God is holding it in front of our faces and saying, “You don’t want this anymore, do you? It’s trash!” No, Father, we don’t want it! But we need your help. Please set us free.

Ask God to show you your trash. (Psalm 139:23-24)
Search the Bible for verses that challenge your old thinking. Enlist a wise friend for this investigation. It will bless you both!
Pray daily for the humility to accept what God is teaching you.

Cleaning Out The Cobwebs

Little by little my home is becoming a cleaner, brighter, and more restful place. Decluttering has been exhausting – and we still have a long way to go! – but it is worth it!

Fifteen minutes a day makes a dent over time.

Can you dedicate 15 minutes a day to spiritual decluttering? Rediscover the beautiful things that you forgot! Share your insights to love and encourage others! And ruthlessly toss the trash!