Spiritual Hoarding

I think we are all hoarders to some extent. Some of us call it “pack rats” but most of us save things that we think we may need later on. I’m a pretty organized person in most areas, but if you were to look in my garage I could probably be called a hoarder to some degree. But I just never know when, or if, I might need one of those valuable items.

Spiritual hoarding is just as bad or in most cases much worse than hoarding things. What do I mean by spiritual hoarding?  All too often we  want to hang on to past hurts, anger, pride, and  jealously. These feelings of the past just hang around and are pilled in one mental closet or another and serve no purpose but to clutter up our mind.

Too often we want to take out some of these treasures and re-visit them. We  re-live the pain and hurt that these  feelings caused. We roll it around in our minds and justify our feelings. Then after our pity party we stick them back in the closet and close the door.  We are so busy hanging on to our past hurts that we are hindered from growing in God. We want to complain about how horrible our childhood was and how angry we are with a parent or relative that we can’t see past the pain. We grumble and fuss, cry and complain, and rationalize  our hurt. Then we wonder why it seems that God never hears our prayers.

In many cases we are still angry at people who are dead and can’t right their wrong, but we stay angry anyway.  Or maybe that person just won’t right the wrong that they have caused.  We forget sometimes that God has forgiven us of a great debt; and yet we won’t forgive another.  We didn’t deserve to be forgiven,  but He did anyway.

Other times its jealousy or pride that is holding us back; we deserved that promotion, we should get more recognition than we do.  Hate and racisms is another weight that holds us down. Hate  only serves to eat you up from the inside out. Your hatred for another human being does no harm to them but will eventually  kill you;  both physically and spiritually.  

The weight of haughtiness and pride fills our minds with an unclear and most times, wrong view or ourselves.   Keep in mind that the Bible warns us that pride comes before the fall, and you will fall every time and very publicly. God lets us build our selves up so that it is easy for everyone to watch as we are knocked off our pedestal. 

Do some house cleaning today. Get rid of the junk you’re holding on to, give it to God and let Him deal with it. Free your mind of the clutter and grow.