The Change You Want To Make

Fresh Manna 2009© by Pastor Tim Burt

1 Cor. 10:23 (NLT) You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is helpful. You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is beneficial.

I don’t even know if most people have a sock drawer, but I do. I wear suits and dress pants often and so I have accumulated many socks over the years. After I had fished out the pair I wanted yesterday, I tried to close the drawer and I couldn’t. I had to pull out the entire drawer to find out what was wrong. When I did, I could see that some pairs had dropped behind and were preventing it from closing. This happened because the sock drawer was ridiculously overstuffed. I could hear Renee’s voice in my head, “Tim, you have way too many socks! It’s so stuffed that you are going to break the hardware on the drawer. Why don’t you get rid of the ones you don’t need.”

I’ve heard her say that a few times. The truth is, she’s right. I’ve bought fresh socks over the years but seldom thrown out older pairs. I could hardly find what I needed they were so packed in there. And I did actually break a piece of the hardware on the drawer that helps it slide. Well yesterday, I cleaned out the sock drawer and got rid of a third of the socks! This was way too overdue! And it felt so good! Crazy, huh?

Why did I wait so long to do something that I have thought about a hundred times (with Renee’s help?) I’m not really a pack rat. We both clear out and give stuff away on an ongoing basis. As I was cleaning the drawer, a verse came to mind. I think the Lord used the occasion to have a deeper talk with me. The verse that came to mind was today’s Fresh Manna verse, 1 Cor. 10:23 You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is helpful. You say, I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is beneficial.

I don’t think – I know that there are many things that the Lord talks to each of us about – things we do in life that may not be sin, but they are definitely not beneficial. There are many things we could eliminate and replace with something better, such as in the way we spend our time. There are activities that we put time and money into that we get very little real satisfaction from. We simply do things out of habit even though we often think about making a change regarding them – even as we do them. I’ve thought about that sock drawer for three years. Why? Why think so long if I knew I should do something about it? Was it because it wasn’t hurting anything? Well was it helping anything either? Truth be told, it was actually a pain every time I had to look for a pair of socks.

As I said, I know God talks to us on many levels about many things that we need to change in our lives that we may not deem sin. And, because they aren’t sin, we just let them go on and on. Following the leading of the Holy Spirit is listening to those little small impressions of the heart and doing something about them. And the funny part is, when we do – when we rid ourselves of something that is bothering us or that we know isn’t profitable or beneficial and replace it with something beneficial – we feel so much better!

A simple thing like a sock drawer – yesterday it was a pain, today it was a delight. It felt so much better today. When Renee finds out she is going to be happy about that little item. Why let the unprofitable continue when all we need to do is make a change or adjustment? I like adding things that benefit me to my life. I like getting rid of the unprofitable. How about you?

In His Love,
Pastor Tim