I am seeing the need to spring clean my life.  I am quite diligent in going through my closets, cupboards, and drawers –  ridding my home of dust and clutter along the way.  This process assists me in making better use of the space and items I have.  I believe the same principle can be applied to the relationships and activities that fill the nooks and crannies of my time.

I desire to be an active participant in life. I don’t want to sit on the sidelines and give opinions.  I want to play the game and live my convictions. To me, that means cultivating my mind to think critically and teach effectively; nurture relationships; be active in prayer and Bible study; parent intentionally; and be fluent in hospitality.  Now that I have outlined my goals, I need to align them to God’s word.   Jesus says to do all things heartily as unto Him and not unto men. He says to be diligent and fervent in His service. I don’t believe this means frantically doing something every minute. It means giving my all to what He calls me to do and managing my time and energy in a way that includes stillness. With this in mind, I can begin my spring cleaning: evaluating every area of my life to see what should be left as is, improved, or eliminated.

To start my spring cleaning, I read Genesis 1, Ecclesiastes 3, and Romans 12.  Through these passages it became evident to me that God works in a planned and organized fashion; there is a purpose in all He does; there is a season for everything (meaning I don’t need to do everything, all the time, forever); and active living (including active resting) is a calling for the Christian life.  Intentional living is at the heart of a simple life. The reason? In doing so, all things will have a purpose, be accomplished with purpose, and may achieve multiple goals at the same time (for example, God created the sun and moon to not only govern the day and night, but to regulate the seasons as well).  This focus on intentionality and simplicity eliminates excess clutter and the expenditure of surplus energy.  This  explains why I so highly value lists and schedules.  However, at the heart of all of my activity must be the desire to love Jesus with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength. To do anything less will render my activities meaningless and make an idol out of my to-do list.  So what does a Christ-focused schedule look like? I am beginning to find out.

The first thing I did was to create a new Facebook account.  In two weeks, I will delete my old one.  Not only will my friends list be cleared of everyone who isn’t really interested in what I have to say, I also have the opportunity to rid my wall of mindless chatter, games, and trivial facts that don’t truly edify the heart or help the mind to grow.  From now on I plan to only post things that will challenge my friends to live more intentionally.  It will be a way to hold myself accountable too.  Another thing that I have decided to do is to only blog every other Wednesday.  This gives me time to write with more thought and more relevancy while also giving me time to work on some of my other writing projects.    These are just two examples of how I am weighing each task and responsibility that have demands upon my time and energy.   It will be interesting to see how these changes will impact my life.

What about you? Have you done any spring cleaning lately? Feel free to share on the comments section of this blog or on my Facebook wall.