| Spiritual Hoarding |

Earlier this week, I decided to undertake something crazy like. I sprung into action with the great idea to clean my room.

I know this doesn't seem like such a big thing, but I think I've cleaned my room one time since I've made the move to Oakland. As you can imagine, it wasn't the prettiest thing. The Process can be similar to writing a paper. You know what you have to do, you don't really know how/where to start things, but you know what the end product is going to look like. I bravely went into battle with some of the things that I have spent a long time amassing and I had a few very interesting thoughts...

I have always had the problem of trying to figure out who I was. Trying to figure out what it really means to be me, and to be ok with that. I've always thought that in order to be special/memorable, I needed to have some kind of gimmick. I either had to be the only black guy in the fellowship, or I had to be that guy who really likes music a lot. I could be the really crazy, random guy with a heart of gold. I would find something to run with, and I would play that up. If I were going to pick something to label myself with, I would live that thing up to the fullest of my ability. The problem with doing things this way was that things would pile up on top of me, and I'd just decide to switch things up like outfits in my closet.

As I cleaned my room, I was having thoughts of what it was like to have a clean room. It's so freeing to be able to see the floor, or just know that the floor is unobstructed. My mid-evening trips to the bathroom would be so much less perilous (I will kinda miss winding my way though things in the dark, half awake, I can almost swear that this is why i'm so agile.). I began to find things that I had spent much time looking for, and eventually, giving up for lost. Once I was done, I realized that i had a nice space that I could use to practice my bass playing, or to play my cajon in. Things just seemed to open up for me, and possibilities began to open up.

How much could this relate to my spiritual life, and what does this have to do with anything?

I AM TOO DIRTY!!!

I didn't feel comfortable doing any of these things in my room (blogging, playing instruments, praying...). There was just so much clutter, that I had to go outside of that place to be able to do anything that was relaxing (besides sleep.) Actually, about the only thing that I wanted to do in that place was sleep. At the same time, I really felt like my spiritual life was mirroring that.

There wasn't much room for me to be myself. I had allowed so many things to just rest on me, and reside within my spirit, that I was running out of room to be comfortable in my own skin. This is kinda sad when you think about it, yes. I was cluttered by years of things that I hadn't decided to deal with, Ideas that kept me shut down, or just the inability to care about much. For someone who really likes people, I just thought I was being attacked with a bout of selfishness. In reality, I had so much packed in/on/around me, that I didn't have the capacity to even allow myself to have genuine love for people.

You know what's funny, is that this also was something that was pushing God out of the equation too. I mean, if you don't make space for Him, where is He going to fit in? I thought about this show that I've seen on tv. It's called hoarders. There are these people who are affected with a condition known as hoarding. They just keep collecting things and soon it is all that is in their lives. They fill their houses to the brim, with crap. They just keep collecting and collecting, storing and storing. This is similar to what I think my soul (not my room, I PROMISE) was looking like. There was no room for any new truths/treasures/revelations. What's more, the crap that I was holding onto was pushing out the good stuff that I knew about myself previously.

The real me was getting trapped and stuck under the crap that was in my soul. Different lies that I had believed, the burdens of situations that I wanted to just forget. Of course I had gotten to a place where I felt like I was not able to escape what was happening to me. All the things that I loved about myself/gave me life, were buried deep underneath a bunch of nonsense that needed to be cleaned out. As I begin to pray about the things that I've been through in the past couple of years, I see the things that I had forgotten about myself. I miss these things, thankfully, I have the ability to finally get up and clean things out. I know that I have lots of room to make for God to do something with, it's almost scary how much room I will be able to make.

The end of this summer will be a chance for me to work on cleaning, making space, and replacing. Making space for the old me to exist, and for the Holy Spirit to be able to put His stuff down and stay comfortably.