I have a love-hate relationship with things.

I both wish I could have less of them, yet long for or cherish a few of them. Ugh.

Don’t get me wrong. I employ many on a daily basis—like the laptop I used to post this or the pen and paper I used to draft it. Then others are background essentials for life in the modern world like my oven, mixer or car. I don’t think about them much, but it would be annoying if I couldn’t cook dinner or get to work. Lastly, a few are sentimental and precious for no reason other than they have been part of my life like my wedding ring set or my ancient stuffed toy rabbit, Joey.

But even with all those caveats, I would really rather have a lot fewer things within my surroundings. Fewer things to monitor and take care of sounds like bliss.

If you can’t guess by the focus of this post, I’m decluttering again. Friday, before the newlyweds come to visit us, I will catalog my current list of giveaways and take them to Salvation Army. So, I am making headway.

Still, why am I not getting rid of as much as I would like to? Oh, that’s easy. Easy is the key word. It’s easier to hide what I have than it is to purge through the stuff. Sorting through things, too, is emotional and exhausting. So, for the moment, it’s easier and more comfortable to keep the junk I know than it is to open every drawer, every closet and empty every bin.

But that ease doesn’t last. And therein lies the problem. The extra stuff chafes and annoys and causes stress. Eventually, I have to deal with it. I just wish the process of dealing with it wasn’t so much work. I wish it wasn’t so uncomfortable and painful.

And as I was thinking about this in the physical world, it occurred to me that our clutter in the spiritual world is similar. Those bad habits we don’t want to confront, the sins we try to ignore and all the unhelpful mental clutter that we cling to is just like the stuff buried in a closet. We can ignore it for the moment, but it will cause us pain in the long run if we don’t deal with it.

There’s a reason that God tells us to take every thought captive. The thoughts that don’t align with his Word need to be purged. The sins that so easily beset us need to be taken to the dump. The ways that are not righteous need to go away.

Even though I don’t want to do it, I will keep trying to reduce the things in my life and wishing I had a Marie Kondo to help me with the process. But I will also be grateful that in the spiritual realm, I have the expert declutterer, the Holy Spirit, helping me clean house.

Tomorrow may be Halloween, but it always makes me think of the Reformation and Martin Luther nailing up the 95 theses on the door of Wittenberg Cathedral. So what does the Reformation have in common with driving a stick shift car?

In truth, it’s one of my favorite side effects of driving a stick shift car. It’s harder to speed in residential neighborhoods. It’s one reason that I’ve never had a ticket. In second gear, for instance, it’s hard to go past twenty miles per hour without the engine screeching at you. For third, it’s thirty before the car isn’t happy. So for speeds under forty miles per hour, you’re pretty safe at keeping at the right speed or close to it as long as you stay in the right gear.

I’ve totally confused some of you thus far and I know it. I also know that even this benefit is not going to change anyone’s mind about what kind of car he or she drives. But understanding it might help with the concept below.

One of the key slogans of the Reformation was Sola Scriptura—by Scripture alone. Prior to the movement to change the church and make the Word of God accessible to all, only the priests and other clergy could read it and try to understand it. Because of that, guidance for the populace was erratic. The limits (or lack thereof) depended on the faith of those around them who could read Latin. For a while, they might speed through life violating all sorts of Biblical truths simply because their religious leader cared more about his pocket than truth. Then they might get a teacher, like Martin Luther had been prior to the Reformation, who felt so unworthy that he made everyone live by strict tenets and severe asceticism. These would crawl through a painful spiritual existence.

When the Bible came to all, they could see the true limits. Works wouldn’t get them there. Nor would belief in the existence of God. On the other hand, they didn’t have to try and suffer the price that Christ already paid. Rather, the Bible assured the new faithful that: “We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.” Martin Luther

The words of Scripture, applied daily, set appropriate limits on our lives. It keeps us from driving at 25 when God wants us soaring at 60. Likewise, it keeps us from careening over the edge of a curve by slowing us down and back in line with God. “The sin underneath all our sins is to trust the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ and must take matters into our own hands.” Martin Luther

And when we take matters in our own hands, we violate not only God’s law, but also his goodness and holiness.

Slow down or speed up today to the gear God has posted by reading his truths!

Last Saturday, the ladies breakfast club was at my house. The topic was what breaks us.

We discussed it for about an hour. Obviously, I can’t cover all of that in a blog post, so you will get the highlights.

Often, we feel like the exploding cup in the picture. (I tried to get a picture of Kintsugi, but none of them were free. If you don’t know what that looks like, Google it.) We are shattered so badly, that we feel nothing and no one can put us together again. Fortunately, God excels at doing the impossible. Not only does he glue us back together again, but he does it with gold—making us more beautiful than we were before.

Therefore, as much as we don’t like it, we don’t have to worry about being broken because our Lord is the great restorer. In the quickest shorthand, loss, pain and opposition break us. But if we find ourselves lost and having lost, God will find us and give us back what disappeared. Think of the Israelites leaving Egypt. Over the years as slaves, everything had been taken from them. But God told them to ask for treasures from the Egyptians as they left. They were given so much that they had all the materials to build the tabernacle and the ark, plus more to give to God and still own beautiful things. Can you visualize how much wealth that was? Or as David said in Psalm 23, “my cup overflows”.   God is the source of all blessings, so of course he can give back what the locusts have eaten. But He is also too generous to stop there.

What if we are broken through pain? In the book of Job, that poor man was broken in all three areas. He lost all his family and possessions (other than his wife), suffered unbelievable pain, and then was criticized and judged by his “friends”.  Even his wife told him to “curse God and die.” He had no support other than his faith. Still, in the midst of his brokenness, he declared, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end, He will stand upon the earth.” (Job 19:25) He had nothing but faith, but faith plus God equals limitless opportunities.

What if we are broken through opposition? Oh, dear ones, who knows opposition better than Jesus Christ? It was no accident that in his first message in Nazareth, Jesus quoted Isaiah 61.

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners.”

The poor, the brokenhearted, the captives and the prisoners are all oppressed in one way or another. And since Jesus clearly saw the cross ahead of him, he understood and had compassion.

There is so much more we said and I could say, but I’m running out of space. Suffice to say, God uses what breaks us to make us beautiful. But also, if you look at a piece of kintsugi and learn about the art, the new seams of gold make the piece stronger.

We are His works of art. He treasures us—broken, restored or somewhere in between.