I hate clutter.  However, that doesn’t stop the cluttering from growing in my home.  I try to weed out the stuff that I don’t want or don’t use anymore but it gets replaced with other stuff.  Clutter isn’t just in our homes.  It is in our cars, in our school lockers and at the office.   But it is also in our hearts and minds.  Thoughts clutter my mind all the time.  There are times when I wish I could just turn it off!  Sometimes the thoughts are memories that bring me joy and I just want to savor those moments again.  Sometimes my imagination goes haywire, and I try to envision all types of scenarios of what “could” happen.  Other times it is thoughts from the past that I really don’t want to remember.  I have a plan of action for those times when I start thinking about those things that I don't want to remember or dwell on.  I start singing a praise song in my head, or I will start praying about something, anything, that has nothing to do with that particular thought.  It usually works. 

Isaiah 43:18-19a says this: “Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old.  Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it?”

For 15 years I had kept journals of my devotion times and prayers.  I never looked at them, but they were all stored away in a closet for . . . . I have no idea why.  I guess I thought I would want to look them over someday.  Well, one day I took all the journals out of the closet, and I started thumbing through them.  There were prayers that I did not remember, and they were for people that I had absolutely no memory of.  I then realized that the journals weren’t for keeping.  Their job was to keep me focused during devotion and prayer times (because my cluttered mind keeps going off track).

So, I did something bold the other day.   I gave all the journals to my husband, and he took them outside and burned them.  For some reason, I felt lighter inside.  I was holding onto those journals and somehow they were cluttering up my mind as well as my closet.  There were things written in the journals that I did not want to remember as well as things that I couldn’t remember.  I still write in journals and I probably always will as it does help me to stay focused.  After a few years I will probably burn these too.

Revelation 5:8b says “. . . each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints”.  God keeps all my prayers in a bowl – I don’t need to keep a second copy in my closet!