Earlier this week I decided that I would have a garage sale. I had a lot of things just sitting around gathering dust, so I thought why not sale it? So I started getting things in the house ready for the sale. On yesterday I began the daunting task of cleaning out the garage. Here is where the lessons began....
My garage had become a mini storage unit. Everything you could think of was out there. The usual things like the lawn mower, lawn tools period were hanging on the wall in their respective places. The freezer was in it’s nook and working properly. But we had a lot of other things out there that I just shook my head at. Stuff out of my car when I didn’t feel like taking it in the house I just dumped it in the garage. My son’s things from college after he graduated. Movies, dresser, bed frame, mattress. Boxes and boxes of stuff. Things from the last time I had a garage sale. You name it, it’s out there. The only thing that was not in my garage was the thing it was created for. The Cars.
Lesson I : Though we have many uses, when we get away from what we were created for, a lot of things can began to pile up in our lives.
As I began my task, I looked at the garage as a whole. Where do I start? What should I do first? Should I pull everything out or should I go section by section? Should I go around the perimeter and get rid of things that are not needed? Or should I just deal with the middle where I want to have the sale at? I heard the Lord say, “ Until you tear it down and clean it out, you don’t have a true picture of what you have.”
Lesson II: You can’t start something new on a foundation of moving old junk around to make room for it. That is how you got here.
So...section by section I started pulling things out and going through them. Just as I was about to throw out a box of stuff, the Lord would say, “Dig a little deeper.” I said, “Lord I don’t know what is in this box...it has been out here a for a minute.” Same response, “Dig a little deeper.” EVERYTIME, I would find a book, pictures, something that was so precious that I had forgotten I had. I would smile or laugh each time I found something. Wonderful memories would flood my heart.
Lesson III: No matter how messy, dirty, or tedious it may feel, You need to sort through the junk. There are some true treasures there.
As the sun was starting to go down, I heard the Lord say, “Do you see why I have to tear you down and sift through the junk in you? What you were created for is getting lost in the stuff you keep putting there. In the midst of all it I can find the treasures that make me smile when it comes to you.”
I can see this is going to be a two parter. I’m not through in the garage, and I can tell He is not through teaching...That is what I love about God...His classroom is wherever He wants it to be.
I enjoyed your story too ! We must also realize that there are others who would love to have what we may consider to be junk. When we get rid of what I call clutter... it frees us somehow and prepares us for new things. Everything that we have ( forms ), will either belong to someone else someday, or go back to the world of form from which it came. If all of us gave to people in need the things we no longer had use for..... no one would ever be in need. What a even more wonderful world this would be !
Friday, May 15th 2009 at 9:42PM
Min.Dr.LaDonna Blaylock D.D.
