by Kevin Burton
You’ve been there I’m sure, where I was Sunday.
I called it “crawl out of it” day. Perhaps you can think of a better term. The idea is part getting back into a normal routine and part creating a better routine.
I felt as if I hadn’t quite recovered from our two recent mini-vacations. Also, we just had a visit from the pest-control people. It was one of those take-everything-out-of-the-cupboards visits.
The suitcases on the living room couch were very nearly emptied from vacation, when they were filled to overflowing by belongings from our kitchen. Every surface in our living room, dining room and the adjoining area where the piano is were also filled.
Hence the need for restored order and a better form of order moving forward.
Taking everything out of the cupboards made it obvious that we could live without maybe 40 percent of it, maybe more.
Also our family Bible study is headed to the tiny two-chapter Old Testament book of Haggai soon. That book talks about the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem.
Had I been on the ball I would have suggested we study it when we did Ezra and Nehemiah which also talk about rebuilding the temple. But this timing is working out. I need a rebuilding focus just now.
The prophet Haggai told the people if Israel, returned from Babylonian exile, to get their act together. The rebuilding project had been started 17 years earlier but was then abandoned. People were working on their own houses, leaving God’s house a shambles, much like ours.
“Then the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying, “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?” Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: “Consider your ways!”
“Consider your ways” could be a loose paraphrase of what my wife has been saying about our household chaos. Sunday was the day we set aside to get some good momentum toward creating a more workable living space.
For example, there is the crockpot we actually use, the crockpot we got from Jeannette’s mother (which she says is the best one we have) and the smaller crockpot I got years ago from my father, which I will keep largely for sentimental reasons.
My dad was not one for sentiment and he rarely hit the actual day (birthdays, Christmas) with his gifts. He gave me that crockpot though on my actual birthday one year. That was either the law of averages kicking in or an editorial comment by him about my cooking ability.
Anyway, stuffed back deep on a lower cupboard shelf behind the waffle maker and the toaster, was a fourth crockpot. I was probably the one who wanted to keep it when we got it, but now, under the “consider-you-ways” mandate, it became an easy thing to jettison.
We continued in that vein Sunday with some satisfaction, landing us somewhere comfortably between Better Homes and Gardens and Hoarders.
Many of the “just toss it” decisions were surprisingly easy.
Because all that stuff fir in our cabinets, it was easy to fool ourselves into thinking we were organized. Just keep the cupboard doors closed and everything is tidy, right?
Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither was our clutter. We’ll get there.
We’ll get another big boost this month or next when Jeannette’s son and his family come to claim some furniture we’ve been holding for them. In that day, what a wonder the place will be!
“The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘And in this place I will give peace,’ says the Lord of hosts,” reads Haggai 2:9, NKJV.
Glory and peace.
I’m always careful not to take scripture out of context, but I hope there is some kind of loose equivalent coming soon for the Burton household.
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