If you’ve ever cleaned out a junk drawer, you’ll know how easy it is for things to accumulate.
Daily life keeps us so swept up with immediate responsibilities that it’s easy to miss all the little ways stuff gets tracked into our space.
But accumulation is gradual; it’s slow, subtle, and sneaky:
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Broken pens
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Balled up paper
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Outdated coupons
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Brand new highlighters already missing lids 🙄
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Empty candy wrappers
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Used gum 🥴
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Single socks 🤦🏼♀️
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And stinky soccer shin pads – Why, Lord, why? 😩
Before you know it, the drawer you once thought had tons of space is actually hard to close.
And the same goes for our lives.
If we are not constantly purging self—our wants, needs, and ways of doing and seeing the world—the life we once thought had tons of space for God actually ends up filled with junk and closed off to God.
Lent invites us back.
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As you sit with the prompts in today’s newsletter, and with Easter just around the corner, may today’s intermission invite you more into the soul work of Christ and less into the soul work of self.
-With Joy
Pause for Prayer
“It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development.”
Amen.
—A Prayer for Oscar Romero and Other Departed Priests [1]
Pause for Practice
If there’s a drawer, a closet, a cupboard, or maybe even your purse or backpack, that has become filled-to-the-brim with stuff, make time this week to declutter and purge. Throw out everything that no longer serves you and use the act of purging to symbolize an emptying of self.
With every item you remove, pray a prayer of repentance and confession reflecting something from your life you’re letting go of, getting rid of, or desiring to remove from your life.
When the space is empty and cleared, stand back and observe. Notice the space. Invite God’s presence to fill your space with one thing He desires to fill your life with.
-Emptying Your Junk Drawer
Pause for Examination
With the last part of the above prayer in mind, reflect on what part of God’s Kingdom you’re contributing to: “We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development.”
- [1] Lindi Davidson—The Ignatian Adventure by Kevin O’Brien, The Second Week, p.127.
- [2] The Soul Work of Less (illustration) by Dustin Heigh, IG: @joint.and.marrow.
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- Click here for previous month’s art offerings
P.S. AP.S. No need to cling. It’s okay to let go and trust 😂
