1st August 2023
Making the right change
“Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.”
Psalm 68:19 (NIV)
We have been confronted with the need to make more changes around the house. There are always the yearly chores like staining the deck, but I think the hardest one is facing the need to get rid of things that we have accumulated over the years. Once my grandson moved out to seek his dreams in the world, we just slowly started using his room as a storage place; it was repurposed. Now we are having to face the fact that we need to make his room back into a bedroom, So, that means a lot of changes. I do not like change, and have to stop and process it all in my head. I want to change, but I am not sure how to go about it.
It is so easy to stuff something that is no longer needed or good out of our sight, in this way we do not have to deal with it. “Out of sight, out of mind” they say. Sometimes this is good like the cookies we should not eat, but sometimes this is bad because whether we see it or not, this clutter can lay a heavy burden on us; and that is physically and spiritually. What amazes me so much is the way one thing affects another. To get rid of something in this room, I need to decide if we need it or it should go. If I need it, where does it go? If I do not need it, should I just throw it away or find it a new home. Now if I keep it, I need to clean out another spot for it. What was in that spot must go somewhere? I have found we are doing a lot of rearranging and cleaning in the process. It is not all bad of course.
So, God keeps whispering to me to listen close and observe this process. We store a lot of clutter in our lives, but it is not all physical. We try to hide our failures. We try to hide our hurts and fears. What we did in the past still haunts us hiding there in the corner all covered with dust. I often hear the remarks of those who bring up past offenses and how they will not forgive them; useless clutter. I hear of how people have shelved and covered over a hurt; useless clutter. What do we do with this clutter? How do we get rid of it? And if we get rid of it, and we should, where do we put it? Are we just passing on a burden? As I am writing this my phone buzzed. I looked down at the article called “Move On” by Barbara Dahlgren. Yes, we need to move on, but how do we do this?
When it comes to our lives, God is the best judge of how to make the changes we need to make. We are to give him our burdens; our clutter. We cannot hold onto things, they will weigh us down, and keep us from moving forward. Our sins are a great burden for us, but Christ bore them on the cross. Does God store all this burden? I am confident that he does not; he gets rid of it for good. Psalm 103:12 says, ‘As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgression from us.’ Jerimiah 31:34 says I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more. Hebrews 8:12 and 10:17 say, their sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more. We are to help each other out as well (Galatians 6:2).
Prayer
Merciful God, we come to you desiring your help because we cannot make these changes alone. You are the one who can make these changes in us and you desire to do so. We have a lot of useless clutter. Remove our burdens and replace them with your caring ways. Teach us to not be a burden, but to help others with our love for them. As you do and as you are, we desire to be. Thank you, God, for your love for us! In Jesus’s name, Amen.
Study by Anne Gillam
About the writer:
Anne Gillam is a retired Pastor in Grace Communion International, Klamath Falls, Oregon, USA.
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