Thursday, September 06, 2007

My garage is always a mess

My wife is an excellent housekeeper and has taught me and our kids to take great care of our house. For instance every bed is made and rooms are cleaned before leaving for school at 6:45 a.m. However, the garage is my territory and it is a different story, maybe even a different book. Someone said that a garage is a place to keep $250 worth of junk while a $15,000 vehicle sits just outside. There is only one way to get the car in the garage, you must get the junk out. I will admit that I love my junk and even love the church's junk that I keep in the garage. Like the original sound booth, and even a pulpit complete with a gold leaf cross on the front. Truth be told, my cars may never get to spend a night in the garage. Now from time to time I will organize my garage. I will compartmentalize things and places, I will sweep the floor and clear the biggest spot int the middle of the garage that I can. After these episodes, I usually walk away feeling good about my junk, good about the fact that I can open my garage door without shame. However, it does not take long for the junk to fall back into place. In 1 week, maybe 2 it is a mess again, so I face the embarrassment, and hassle or organizing my junk. In truth many of us do this with our lives. We have a place, a spiritual or emotional garage where se keep all of our junk. While our house may be in order and visitors to our house may be impressed, we keep the garage door locked. We would hate for someone to see the mess that we keep in that junk drawer. The origin of the word holy comes from the same root where we get the word whole Meaning complete. Essentially, if there are areas of our life where we hide our junk, then we are not holy. So what do we need to do in order to stop organizing and rearranging our mess...

1. Identify the junk - We need to look long and hard at the things in our garage. Ask ourselves why are we holding onto them. Are we really going to use that again, are we really going to need a ten year old version of that ten years from now? I think we hold on to a lot of bitterness and anger this way, we think that we may need that old hurt to use on the one who hurt us.

2. Throw it out - Let it go man, just let it go. This is much easier after you have labeled it as junk. But it still requires effort. There are some things that you can easily bag up and set by the curb, and there are other things that are heavy and might require the help of some close friends.

3. Move the car inside - Let your poor garage fulfill its purpose in life. It lives for the car to pull in and to wrap its automatic door behind it. Let it be filled with all the goodness that comes when things are not just organized mess, but exactly as the builder intended.

Now I know what your going to ask. Have I cleaned out my garage? Not yet, but as I pulled out of my driveway this morning I was looking into my garage and thinking it is time to organize it again already. Then God spoke to my heart and said stop organizing your junk, and just get rid of it. So, later today, I will go out to the garage and take step number 1. What will you do with your junk today.