It's fascinating to me because the people who hoard, eventually render their homes useless. They can't eat in the dining room. They can't cook in the kitchen. They can't bathe in their bathrooms. They can't live in the living room. They can't sleep in the bedroom. Their stuff keeps them from using their homes for their intended purpose and still they refuse to let it go. They are comfortable with the junk in their homes. It's what they know. They even choose their stuff over people.
In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble... If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work. (2 Timothy 2:20-21)
It's not just our houses that need cleaning. It's our lives. What are we holding onto that keeps us from being useful? What attitudes, habits, actions, or thoughts are we refusing to let go of even though they keep us from being all that we were meant to be? What junk have we gotten so comfortable with that we would rather be miserable than let it go? What behaviors are we hanging onto even though they hurt the people around us?
"Lord, I don't want to be a hoarder. I don't want to keep things in my life that are ignoble (common, inferior, vulgar or mean). I want to be an instrument for noble purposes--holy and useful to you--ready to do any good work. Lord help me get rid of pride and judgement. Rid my mouth of godless chatter. Rid my thoughts of negativity and hopelessness. Sweep away anger and impatience. Make me holy, not to draw people to me, but to point them to you."
3 comments:
Another good one. Like it. Amy
God started really "cleaning house" at mine and Billy's house before we moved from NWBC in OKC to Mena AR. He started showing us things in our home and our lives that were keeping us from being holy. You wouldn't believe the things we got rid of. The number of CDs and DVDs. I remember thinking...all this money...down the drain...I even thought about selling it and there were a couple of reasons why we didn't...one is because we didn't want the things we knew were not pleasing in God's eyes to end up in someone else's home to make them fall and there was a verse Acts 19:19-20...after reading that I knew it wasn't about the money involved it was about doing what was obedient to God's word and watching God's word grow in me and my family. Since then God has revealed so much to us. I can tell you there isn't much that we can watch on tv as we do not watch anything that has a rating with language, sexual content, violence, or nudity in it. I remember God starting to reveal this all to me through a website Billy showed me. I was a huge fan of Harry Potter until the day I read this article! If you have never read the articles on the website www.logosresourcepages.org you should. There are so many wonderful articles that are all backed up with scripture. One thing I really liked in the article about The Problem with Harry Potter is that Dr. David L. Brown has his 9 Biblical Principles for Determining Acceptability. They are great and something I would encourage your family to adopt. We also love the Duggars and our family has many of the same values and morals as they follow. We are homeschooling our kids so that we can teach them the values and morals set by God through His word so that they don't pick up "junk" from other kids at school and also to protect them from the ungodly truths they are teaching in public schools these days. There is so much evil out there and it is so easily overlooked by Christians because we have become tolerant of sin and so it sneaks into our homes and our families and starts to break them apart. I have watched the show hoarding a couple of times and used to watch clean house all time...it also fascinates me at the amount of stuff people have and then I look at my own house and decide it is time to "clean house". I am also cleaning house in my "soul" as well...it is always refreshing to have spring cleaning don't you think!
I watched an episode or two and it taught me a lot about how hoarding is often rooted in anxiety. I had previously thought, "Just send the person on a three-day weekend and have a crew clean it all out." Then I saw the guy who was overly attached to his late mother's possessions, including newly-arrived junk mail on her favorite color of paper. He justified digging old pills out of the trash because they weren't taking up any more space since he was keeping the bottle anyway.
I can't let a hoarding post go by without making a joke about my husband's habits. (Unearthed a U-Haul agreement from Jan. 2001 today during bathroom remodel.) However I must confess that I have more and more to point to in my own little piles. Oops.
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