A Whole Lot of Stuff
I’m a bit of a fraidy cat… I admit it. It doesn’t take much to scare me, which is why I don’t ever watch scary or extra suspenseful movies. I stopped when I was a teenager, because I couldn’t sleep for weeks afterwards. However earlier this year I got sucked into watching something that didn’t seem all that scary, but it was. What movie was it? Well it wasn’t actually a movie. It was a reality show called Hoarders.
The show features people who are compulsive about holding on to stuff. Their whole lives are defined by their possessions. After watching about three shows all with people whose houses were so overrun with things that they could hardly move around I became fearful that it could happen to me. So of course that weekend I totally tore my home a part to see if I had any stuff that I needed to get rid of.
After wrecking my previously neat library (talk about before and after in reverse) I heard the Holy Spirit say. It’s not the stuff in here you have to worry about it’s the stuff you hoard in your heart.
What does one hoard in his/her heart?
…Just a little hurt and resentment because I really didn’t deserve that.
…Just a little anger because that really ticked me off.
…Just a little unforgiveness because what he/she/they did was really unforgivable.
…Just a little envy because it should have been me instead of her.
And so it goes. A little of this and a little of that adds up to a whole lot of stuff that crowds out the soft gentle voice of the Holy Spirit. So in the middle of my library I dropped to my knees, physical stuff now forgotten my mind now on the spiritual.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life.
Psalm 139:23-24
Thank you Lord for reminders of what you expect of us in the most unlikeliest of circumstances.
What a beautiful post! Your comment, ‘their whole lives are defined by their posessions’, so true. And then, you went on to talk about what we hold on to in our hearts – those things still defining us. What a gift you received that day, such wisdom. Thank you….I will reflect on this for a long while.
Andie
Bernadine,
This is a powerful and transparent sharing and I appreciate you always dear friend.
Thank you for your words of encouragement and challenge!
Love you.
Very good story and use of it as an analogy for the clutter in our hearts. I have to say I got a bit nervous when you wrote about cleaning out the library! I know mine needs some thinning out, but oh I don’t want to do it!
Excellent post! You have me motivated to take inventory of my heart.
Please God search my heart and show me anything I am hoarding that is a barrier to my relationship with you!
Oh Bernadine, this is good point. It can much easier to get rid of the physical stuff, than those things in our heart. For we feel that we have a right as you said to cling into them. Yet the little eventual piles up in flows over into our lives.
Bernadine, I watch that show from time to time and I am just amazed at these people. As shocking as it seems to us the things that they hoard, how much more frightening are the spiritual hoarding that goes on in our hearts. Great post today!
Oh, Bernadine, how true! We so often hoard things in our heart and will not let go of it. Thank you so much for the reminder that we need to let go of things that crowd our heart.
I have watched a couple of episodes of the show and indeed it is scary.
Dear Bernadine,
Thank you so much for the wonderful message. I think I needed that reminder. I needed to here the words: “Point out anything in me that offends you,and lead me along the path of everlasting life”. You have made me take stock of what past hurts I still cling to in the corner of my heart! I know that I have to do some major spring cleaning in this department. Thanks for sharing.
Be Blessed,
Cheryl
Bernadine
This message is something we all need to hear. It’s not the external things, although that too…but it is really that stuff we hold on too, yes as someone said, the clutter in our hearts.
It is always good to take time to do an inventory, and to throw away inner clutter by forgiving, by letting go, by making a decision instead of being double minded.
The movie Hoarders is something I’d like to watch!
Thank you for sharing this with us today!
Love
Lidj
Such a great post.