TIME TO CLEAN UP!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

It's a new year AND a new decade. Out with the old, in with the new.

Wish life were that simple!

As I look around me at the clutter, the piles and stacks of things that need my attention, the CHRISTmas decorations that still need to be put away, this person who loves order and organization is going insane!!! And it seems the harder I go, the behinder I get. Ever feel that way?

Where does it all come from? How can so much stuff accumulate in such a short amount of time? I mean I have cleaned it up more than once during the holidays and it seems while I am sleeping, it all just mysteriously re-appears and brings more with it!

Of course, as any organized person knows, it's all a matter of staying on top of everything and putting things away as you use them or as they come in. My problem has been, there have not been enough hours in the day to stay on top and not enough energy left at this point to climb up there!

It occurred to me this morning as I was looking around at this ever growing mess, that that is just how sin creeps into our lives. In the midst of the hurry and scurry of life, little things just sneak up on us sometimes. And, since we are so caught up in the rat race, we tend to ignore them even if the signs are there. We just make excuses or rationalize those trivial little things away as NBD..."No Big Deal".

Yet the Bible tells us that they ARE a big deal. Song of Solomon 2:15 warns us to beware of "the foxes...the little foxes that spoil the vine."

Psalm 1:1 warns us, too, that there is a progression to sin. "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful." Notice how the one spoken of began by walking by sin, then he stopped to take a look and before he knew it he had sat down in the middle of it. That's just how sin overtakes us.

As we begin the New Year cleaning up and cleaning out, maybe we also need to do some spiritual housecleaning, too. Maybe we need to take stock and see if any little "foxes" have crept in...wrong attitudes, impure thoughts, anger, bitterness, ungratefulness, apathy toward the Word or our prayer time, etc.

The psalmist had a remedy for this. "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting." Psalm 140: 23, 24

Let's make that our New Year's prayer so that we can start this new decade on the right foot and in the right frame of mind. We can also echo David's prayer, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." Psalm 51: 10.

As you clean out the clutter in your home, don't forget to de-clutter your heart as well, then you can truly have a HAPPY NEW YEAR!