Decluttering our Formation Practices

As you know, we’ve been working on replacing our floors. Thankfully, the floors are done, and we are now in the process of moving our belongings back inside. As I packed up the boxes to move things out, I thought, “I’ll sort through these boxes before I bring them back inside to see what we need to keep and what can go.”

Are you laughing at me?

It’s ok if you are. It’s like when you pack up your Christmas decorations and think next year I’ll sort through the items we haven’t used in a long time and get rid of them, but then once you put up the decorations you’re done thinking about them and ready to pack the tubs away until it’s time to clean everything up at the end of the season. At which point you just want your house restored to normal and you definitely don’t want to sort through your items to decide what to keep or donate.

Maybe it’s just me. But I’m guessing it’s not.

The reality is that decluttering takes time. We’ve lived in our house for 19 years. We have a lot of items that came with us and many more that we’ve acquired over the years. The people who live here have changed a lot in 19 years. They take up more space. They have different hobbies. They have things that are sentimental to them. I can’t just get rid of things because they don’t matter to me. I have to work with each person to determine what matters to them.

One of the items that is hard for me to part with is books. I read them and then I keep them because I might need to refer back to them in the future. They fill many shelves in our home. As I sat down to write, I had to move a stack of books that was in my way. A stack that needs a shelf to call home. It’s a never ending process.

As I look around the room I’m in, I feel frustrated thinking about the items that are out of place or don’t even have a place because there is no room for them. We have so many laundry baskets. There isn’t really a good place to store them. They take up a lot of space, but we use them every week. So here they sit in front of my dresser, surrounded by the throw pillows that rarely find their way back onto the bed.

I am working to unpack the boxes stacked in the garage, and wishing I could snap my fingers and have all the sorting, donating, and organizing done. As I think about our belongings that need to be sorted, I also find myself thinking of my journey with God.

At times, the way we interact with God can become cluttered like our belongings. Maybe we’ve had a particular spiritual formation practice that we’ve done for years, and it has served us well, but in the season we are in, God is inviting us to set it aside. We might not feel comfortable setting a practice down. We might think we have to keep adding on new practices until one day we realize the closet is so full it feels daunting to open the door.

It is wonderful to experience new ways of connecting with God, and it is a delight to create rhythms of connection that help us orient our lives to God day in and day out.

That being said, it isn’t practical to think that we can implement 10 different practices each day, or that the practices that were most meaningful in one season will always be the most meaningful for every season.

Sometimes we need to pause and reflect on the practices that we are incorporating into our day and ask the Holy Spirit if that practice is still helping us to grow in our connection with God or if another practice might invite us toward growth in a new way.

Some practices may be a part of your daily rhythm for all of time, while others may come and go. All healthy spiritual formation practices serve to help point us to Jesus and invite us to become more like him. It isn’t about a perfect list of practices, or doing the practices perfectly, but rather it is about slow and steady transformation - being near and like Jesus.

• What spiritual formation practices are helping you to move toward Jesus regularly in this season? 

• Are there any practices that you feel the Holy Spirit inviting you to set down for a season? 

• Are there any practices that have felt daunting to try, but that you sense an invitation to give a go now? 

As you reflect on these questions this week, I wonder what the Holy Spirit might highlight for you to notice. Do you sense any resistance in your body when you think about these questions? If so, where do you think that comes from? 

~  Melissa