3-1-2024

Good Morning All,

             1Peter 5:7; “casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”

      My office habits are not necessarily the greatest.  I am a proponent of “moderately organized mayhem” or “semi-controlled clutter.”  I don’t really file things; it is more that I pile things.  I have a pile on this corner of my desk and then a pile on the other corner of my desk.  One pile is for marriage counseling stuff.  One pile is for membership class.  There is a pile on the edge of my desk that has stuff for next week’s service.  There is a pile in the center of my desk that has sermon prep stuff.  There is a pile by the printer that is miscellaneous church mail.  There is a pile of books on my library shelves from various study materials.  A new pile is forming for confirmation and then there are just the seeds of a pile for more electronic preaching. It is mayhem but moderately organized.

    Yet sometimes, especially if things get a little hairy and harried, the piles get a little deep.  Sometimes, I just have to stop and take an afternoon and start throwing things away.  I just hope as I go through it that nothing of any importance emerges from the bottom of one of the piles.  So far nothing major has shown up.  But I do find a fair amount of material that really doesn’t need to be kept.  It might be duplicate material, it might be outdated, or it might not seem as valuable or important as it did a few weeks ago.  Sometimes I need to go through the piles in my office.  Sometimes we need to go through the piles in our life as well.

    Sometimes we keep piles of past sins, past worries and past hurts and fears around too long.  Every so often, you need to go through and truly clean house.  When we hold onto these painful, past events, they pull us back from Christ and his love.  They serve to distract us from focusing on God’s grace and his promise of salvation.  It causes us to lose sight of God’s promised mercy in our life.  Holding onto the past pain short circuits our contentedness and our ability to truly enjoy the life that God has for us.

    Jesus invites us to get rid of those sorrows and worries.  He invites us to cast them on his back.  He invites us to replace our anxiety with his peace, peace that only God’s mercy can give us.  So go through your “piles” in your life.  Are there worries that are outdated?  Are there worries that occur over and over?  Are there worries that aren’t important to us at all?  Then cast them away.  Don’t keep the baggage; that only serves the devil.  Cast off the unneeded and the unwanted cares and sorrows of this life.  Jesus has removed our sins and with this, has given to us the certainty of God’s grace.  So clean out the piles that are hurting you.  Give them to God for he loves you and cares for you.

Father of all mercy; help me to clean up the piles in my life.  Help me to throw away those things in my life which cause me pain.  Help me to have a clean heart and spirit so that I may better serve you.  Be with those who are struggling with the piles that are building in their life.  Lead them from the destruction of the world and the devil and to return to you and your peace.  In the precious name of Jesus, our risen Savior, we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret