Focus Friday: Let's Focus on Throwing Things Away

 

I've been doing quite a bit of writing this week, but I've also been throwing things away.

It feels great.

I've been spending some time in my craft room, going through the drawers and boxes. I have lots of great stuff, but I've also found many things to throw away.

Dried up bottles of paint. A gaudy purple trim I'll never use. Little scraps of paper I don't need. Ugly things. Broken things. 

I found a box of old letters in the craft room, so I took it upstairs to go through and try to combine with a box of old journals.

It was interesting to see what I had saved for so many years. 

Some things were precious (love letters Gary and I had exchanged while dating, cards and letters from special friends and relatives, notes about cute things our kids had done). I stuffed those into the journal box.

Other things, not so precious. 

Old birthday cards, nice at the time, but not really needed anymore. 

Wedding invitations and programs from people I hardly remembered. 

A letter from a high school friend, confirming his crush on me and wondering if it might even be love, sent to me during my freshman year of college (It was sweet at the time, but I don't need my kids finding that someday and wondering if I carried a torch for that guy for all these years! Definitely not, so it was time to throw it out). 

You know it was in the olden days because postage was only 20 cents!

Throwing things away. It feels good to clear out the clutter, free up some space, and let go of things that no longer mean anything to us.

We need to do that with our thoughts, too. We have many wonderful memories and thoughts in our brains, but there's a lot of junk in there, too.

Every once in a while we need to throw away the negative thoughts cluttering up our minds. 

Even better, we need to catch our thoughts as soon as they enter our brains and work on getting rid of the junky things we think.

I found an interesting article that talks about actually writing down our thoughts and physically throwing them away. It made a difference in how people felt. Conversely, if people wrote down thoughts (positive or negative) and put the paper in their wallet or purse, they were more likely to hold onto those thoughts.

So friends, let's think more about throwing things away. Let's throw away the physical clutter and junk getting in our way and distracting us in our homes, but even more so the mental junk and clutter fogging up our minds and getting in the way of living the life God wants for us.

When we "throw away" all of those negative thoughts and attitudes, our minds will be clearer and we'll find the space we need to experience God's peace, enjoy our relationships with others, and do the things we've been put on this earth to do.

"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off [throw away] your old self, which is being corrupted by its evil desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." (Ephesians 4:22 NIV - brackets mine)

How much clutter do you have in your life (physically and mentally)? How can focusing on God help you to throw most of it away and enjoy life more?