“Ma, can I play with your breakables?” my younger cousin questioned my grandma.
Growing up, my grandmother had plenty of dolls, games, and stuffed animals for my cousins and me to play with. The playthings were stored in an easily accessed red toy box that sat in the back hallway. But I suppose when my cousin posed this innocent question, she decided she wanted to venture out from the familiar red-toy-box items.
Ma laughs when she retells this story, as this kind of unforeseen yet sincere question still fits her youngest grandchild’s nature. I’m not sure what her response was to my cousin’s question, but I can imagine that she gently directed the five-year-old’s attention away from the antique glass dishes and back toward the red toy box in the hallway.
It’s safe to say Ma was wise not to allow a child—someone with a high likelihood of breaking these delicate pieces—to play with them unsupervised. But I’m sure my grandmother does spend time herself examining the dishes, possibly during annual spring cleanings, to dust them off and prevent tarnishing. Since they are her dishes, it is her responsibility to properly care for them.
Now that my cousin and I are both adults, I’m sure Ma would gladly show us her “breakables,” many of them being family heirlooms with a good story behind them. But when we were children, it wouldn’t make sense for her to haphazardly toss the “breakables” into the red toy box where her young grandchildren had easy access to them.
Just like it’s important to take care of our delicate things, it’s also wise to care for the delicate places in our own hearts, souls, and minds. When we properly care for the places that are prone to breaking—perhaps delicate because of past pains or temptations—and seek to keep them healthy, we are better able to love God and our neighbors. (See Matt. 22:37-39.) Since we are to love God with all of our hearts, souls, and minds, we have a responsibility to properly care for them to love the Lord fully and righteously. Because we should love our neighbors as ourselves, we must make time to care for ourselves. Bending over backwards to help others without assessing our own wellbeing may lead to heartache. When we don’t protect our hearts, souls, and minds, they are vulnerable to damage.
Making sure our physical, spiritual, and mental health are all well and strong is a delicate balance. So how do we best do this?
1. Clear clutter to start fresh.
I think one of the most liberating things about spring cleaning is getting a fresh start. Organizing your closet by getting rid of items that you have no use for is freeing. However, sometimes it might still be hard to throw out an old T-shirt. The shirt alone isn’t causing closet disaster, but when you pile it up with several other old shirts you don’t need, it creates a real mess and disrupts your vision of an organized space.
Temptations and any other non-valuable time-wasters can also clutter your life when you succumb to them, so stay away from ones you know you are vulnerable to. Addiction can cause evil to pile up quickly. For example, getting on your phone and checking social media once a day isn’t a cause for alarm, but if you’re not careful, it can become addicting and the gateway to other temptations that cause you and others harm. Proverbs 20:27 says, “The Lord’s lamp sheds light on a person’s life, searching the innermost parts.” God gave you a conscience—the ability to determine right from wrong. Allow the Holy Spirit to guide your life in a way that is pleasing to Him.
Consider fasting from something to cleanse your heart, soul, and mind to get a fresh start. You can choose to do an intermittent or extended fast. Some fasting examples include fasting from food, sacrificing a few minutes of sleep to wake up earlier and pray, not watching television, deleting the most used apps on your phone, and so forth. Ask God to direct you to an area of your life that needs to be decluttered.
2. Remove the cobwebs entangling your heart, soul, and mind. (And get rid of that spider, too!)
Sometimes it seems cobwebs pop up out of nowhere. (And this is even more concerning because it means you’ve got at least one spider in your home.) Removing clutter can expose hidden cobwebs. You may not see it at first, but when the light hits the cobweb just right, it exposes a tangled web.
Things you idolize will eventually come to light because the idol will begin to entangle you in its web. The actions of a person entangled in an idol’s web will reflect the stronghold the idol has in his/her life. Have you ever stumbled into a large, intricate cobweb at night, and it seems like you can’t get the stickiness off you? The longer you let the idol develop a web, the harder it is to get rid of.
Matthew 22:37 says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” The best way to love God is to seek to purify our hearts, souls, and minds. Search yourself and ask God to reveal areas in which you need to purify yourself. God forgives and redeems the repentant sinner. Confess your sin to Him.
3. Ask Him for a clean heart.
Psalm 51:10 says, “God, create a clean heart for me and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” David wrote this psalm after he sinned with Bathsheba. David committed many sins, yet he was still called a man after God’s own heart. When he sinned, like all humankind does, he desperately sought the Lord’s forgiveness, repenting and staying in communion with God, asking Him to renew his fallen nature. Alexander MacLaren said:
“We ought to be very thankful that the Bible never conceals the faults of its noblest men. David stands high among the highest of these. … this man sins, black, grievous sin. … [but] it is not innocence which makes men good. … not that God thought little of his foul sin … but that, having fallen, he learned to abhor his sin, and with deepened trust in God’s mercy, and many tears, struggled out of the mire, and with unconquered resolve and strength drawn from a divine source, sought still to press towards the mark. It is not the attainment of purity, not the absence of sin, but the presence and operation, though it be partial, of an energy which is at war with all impurity, that makes a man righteous. That is a lesson worth learning.”1
The only way to attain righteousness is through the Son. The Father sent His Son to die and rise again—to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Until He returns, each of us will fight the propensity to sin. But because of His great mercy, we can attain righteousness through reconciliation with God.
Erin Franklin is a production editor on the Lifeway Women Bible Studies team. A graduate of Lipscomb University and a lifelong Tennessean, she enjoys a good ping-pong match, photography, and learning new things. You can connect with her on Instagram @erin_franklin and on Twitter @erinefranklin.
1. Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Psalm 51–145 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2009), 15–16.
