Where Do You Dump Your Stuff?

I am far from perfect. (Big surprise.) I, like the next person, am what we call “a work in progress.” I have just as many faults as the next person, I suppose. With that being said, I don’t feel bad to say I am not a messy person. Generally speaking, I feel at best when things are in order and clean. When my house is clean, I feel like there is peace, harmony, and good in the world. There is however an exception to this statement. My dining room table. When I get home from wherever I have been, it’s where everything gets dumped. I’m not the only one in the house that does it. Not sure if I projected this habit on my husband or maybe he has always suffered from it too. Doesn’t matter, the fact is the table is messy. It has mail, receipts, my purse, keys, papers, junk, and anything else that gets dumped there each day. It’s a convenient place to dump all that is weighing my arms down when I walk in the door. It’s the first thing I do when I walk in. I don’t think twice about it, and I walk away with a sense of relief by getting rid of what was weighing me down. By the time cleaning day comes in the week or company is coming over, it’s the place I dread cleaning the most. It takes the longest to get orderly. If I would just put things in their place each time, I would avoid that headache.

Why are we so quick to dump our heavy load on places like the kitchen table, but are hesitant to give God the things that are weighing us down in the important areas of life? "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28)

He tells us to come to him with our troubles and allows us to unload our baggage at the foot of the cross. What an amazing gift to each one of us! Yet, each day we pass it up. We continue to carry it around ourselves. Maybe we give him some, but we can’t let go of the grip we have on the really heavy stuff. We long for that sense of relief from getting it off our shoulders, but we refuse to let it go completely. We end up with a mess to clean up in the end, but one that could have been avoided if we had placed our anxiety and concerns where they would be safe…with Him. We walk around with junk strapped to our backs, but have a Father who stands one step beside us with open arms to take it off.

What junk have you been walking around with lately? Consider handing it over to the one who can take it from you, clean things up, and replace it with a sense of peace, harmony, and relief.