We’re less than 90 days out from the big day! And we have found the place we are going to move to. No, stalkers, I won’t tell you where it is.
I will be moving in first and getting it ready for when Bev moves in when we get back from our honeymoon. No, super spiritual people, this isn’t a post about how the groom prepares the home for the bride as Christ is preparing Heaven for us. Besides, this arrangement is purely practical. Otherwise, she would move in first.
But as I have started to pack my boxes and prepare to move forward into the next awesome part of my life, I have had to look at the things I have stowed away in my drawers and closets as I put them into the boxes. And it’s easy to just mindlessly put these things in boxes and cart them off to the new crib. However, I realized that I don’t want to just take a whole bunch of unnecessary junk into my new shared space with my wife.
“Why shouldn’t I get rid of this?”
So I have decided to ask myself the question with everything I pack, “Why shouldn’t I get rid of this?” There are some things that I currently use, need, or actively collect, and I will keep those things. There are other things that I have stored away for memories, heirlooms, keepsakes, and things to share with my children.
But it’s really easy to hold on to things that will only clutter and complicate my space. Thus the question, “Why shouldn’t I get rid of this?”
For instance, I was looking at my old Walkman from when I was in high school that still had a CD sitting inside of it (yes, I threw out my cassette tape player a long time ago). It was a Sony. I’m sure that if I put new batteries in it that it would work great. I also still have all my CDs from high school as well. I have not played even one of them in years. They take up a lot of unnecessary space (remember the big thick CD binders?). And I thought, man, this thing still works, I should hold on to it. Then I thought about the fact that I haven’t used it in forever, and I thought about the fact that I have a much more efficient way of storing and listening to my music now. And really, most of my CDs are actually scratched and won’t play anyway.
Maybe you already see where this post is going, but there is such an easy parallel to draw here to our lives in general. If we’re not careful, we can hold on to things that clutter and complicate our lives just because maybe we’ll want it again or because we just can’t let go of the past. Sometimes we can’t let go of what that person did to us. Or other times we can’t move on to a more upgraded, efficient part of our lives because we’re holding on to something (or someone) that won’t work anyway.
I get it. At one point in my life, that CD player was exactly what I needed, and it served me well. And if the CD player had a 2 terabyte storage capacity and could send my music to Bluetooth speakers, I would totally keep it. But it doesn’t. I’ve grown, and my CD player hasn’t; and trying to use it would only hold me back now.
Sometimes we just have to ask ourselves, “Why shouldn’t I get rid of this?”
“…one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 3:13-14