Declutter and free yourself

Declutter and free yourself

I was raised in a very traditional southern fashion and had attended biblical based schools until my high school years.  I wanted china, crystal, silver, and the conservative old English hunting motif with an array of antiques in my home. I had two automobiles, the proper table setting, the best clothes, and the proper social contacts. Everything a southern girl would want for here “hope” chest. Where did it get me? Unhappy. Why? Because I was not satisfied with everything I had thought I wanted. I also attended church on a regular basis. I was still very unhappy.  

As the years past, money had dried up for various reasons. I learned some valuable lesson called needs versus wants. Those feelings arose not out of wanting them, but out of a forced necessity. My life changed drastically but many of the people around me didn’t. It took death just for me and many around me to change. It took getting in touch with my inner self, my soul, my faith.

To begin with, I had to recognize exactly what made me happy. Spending money on unnecessary items made me unhappy. I saw something that I thought I needed to make life easier for me. I bought it and had a sense of euphoria that lasted about one breath.

There are times that all of us could stand to lose everything to learn some very strong lessons in life. In the past five years, I have decluttered the physical aspects of my life. I have finally reached a point to where I understand that not being able to have more is a blessing than anything else. Not knowing or fearing our future because of not having, strengthens our faith in God because we become more dependent on HIM.

We can become so caught up in what is being offered in society through the power of media persuasion that we overlook what is around us. Happiness is not achieved through physical possessions any more than monetary gains makes us a successful person.  

What makes me happy? Knowing my needs are met and that I truly have no wants.

“… But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Noe the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, ...” (Galatians 5.16-26)

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be.” (Matthew 6.21)

“… Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19.24)

“The LORD preserves the simple; when I brought low, he saved me.” (Psalms 116.6)

“Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his 

glory was not arrayed like one of these…” (Matthew 6.25-34)

A physical want can cause turmoil, to gluttony. God will see to our needs and we should make them known so that the truly righteous can assist him as instructed.