My wife and I are different, which is a very good thing. She likes a room to have… well, room. While I have often seen space as something to fill with stuff, Carrie finds “open and airy” peaceful and refreshing, and she disdains clutter. In my hurry I sometimes lay an object down in a random place, or keep things out and visible because I don’t want to forget something. However, she notices right away if an item does not belong in a particular space, and it bugs her.
In my penchant for creative reuse and my determination to have one or more of anything we might ever need, without her boundaries I could have easily become a hoarder. But thank God, our visitors need not thread their way through tottering stacks, cardboard boxes, and random pieces of wood. Carrie holds the line (and I behave as long as I get to keep an area that’s my own). I have to admit, though, she’s rubbing off on me, and when my space gets too messy it now bothers me enough to clean it up.
The apostle Paul cautioned believers to not make room for some things, and to make room for others. In the last half of Ephesians 4, he described how unbelievers live “in the futility of their minds.” Futile thinking is pointless, useless, and completely ineffective. That kind of mental process won’t get a person anywhere good in the long run, and unfortunately the habit doesn’t immediately disappear upon being born again. Romans 8:6 puts the choice before us rather bluntly: The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace. Knowing the ultimate result of a wrong mindset, Paul cautioned believers to make no provision for the flesh— don’t give it any room to operate in your life (Romans 13:14).
In my book Heaven Bound but Going Nowhere, I described the flesh as “anything you believe, think, say, feel, or do apart from God.” When we walk according to the flesh, we’re leaving God out of the equation. Proverbs 3:5-6 describes it as leaning on your own understanding, and offers an alternative:
Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
Instead of figuring out everything on our own, we make room for God in our thinking and decision-making. We replace earthly wisdom (also described in James 3 as natural and demonic) with the wisdom from above. We offer no space to the devil. Like Jesus, we want to be able to say, “He has nothing in me” (John 14:30, Ephesians 4:27).
While as believers we have a new creation nature (2 Corinthians 5:17), habits like “going with our gut,” analyzing everything, and running on autopilot hold us back from God’s best. Instead of relying on our natural instincts, experience, or human logic, God urges us to bring Him into everything. He is not the author of confusion but of peace. As we declutter our minds of racing thoughts and make room for God, His perspective and wisdom will lead us on good, peaceful paths.
Thanks, JB – I like the analogy of cluttered spaces with our “cluttered” minds! Interesting parallel, and so often true!