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For the third time since 1995, I have done serious spring cleaning in my office. I am traveling much lighter than I was a week ago.
Frankly, the first cleaning and pitching in 1995 was traumatic. I had amassed hundreds of books and commentaries and filed sermons, articles and even napkins with notes on them.
My filing system started in 1978 as a simple alphabetical system. If I read an interesting piece about Christmas, I would clip it, make a file with Christmas written on the tab and file it. When I gave a talk on duty, I made a duty file and placed it behind the Christmas file. This system grew fat, filling my four-draw black file cabinet.
But here was the problem. When I finally looked through the files in preparation to move, I realized that I rarely looked at or remembered having my files. My system grew fat but was not otherwise working. Once I gave a Christmas sermon, only later to remember that I had a file stuffed with Christmas articles and sermons.
With the exception of maybe ten files, I put armfuls of files in banana boxes and hauled them to the trash. Before the trash collector arrived the next morning, I went out to the trash and looked through the files once more. “Let them go,” I said to myself. And I did. Then I went into the house and pulled out 150 books from my shelves and gave them away.
The second spring cleaning in 2000 was another book give away and a college note pitching party. I was somehow convinced that I would someday use my college notes. Even though I hadn’t even looked at them for 20 years, I thought they would one day be useful. It never came, and that day I sneezed my way through boxes of college notes and tests, and gave away lots of old commentaries and other books that I hadn’t cracked in 20 years.
I find interesting notes each
time I clean, and this week I discovered two or three grocery lists as
bookmarks in books I never finished. In
one set of books about the health of a church, I found some folded
notes that ask two sobering questions: “How
much time do you have left?” and “How much time does your church have
left?” I took the notes at a
The presenter promoted both people and churches traveling light. He said if we carry lots of physical weight and emotional baggage our human life will constantly be under stress and our lifespan will be shortened. Similarly, he said churches are dealing with life and death all the time. Churches that decrease their extra baggage such as meaningless programs and cumbersome structures have the best survival rate.
Suddenly I realized that if this were 100 years ago, I wouldn’t even be going through my bookshelves. I’d be dead. Emboldened, I started going through my books with zest, filling 8 banana boxes with old commentaries and scores of books, about 200 in all. A friend who is still building his library came over and joyfully loaded the boxes in his car.
His car was heavy with books and biblical commentaries, while my spirit was carefree and buoyant. Watching him drive off, I realized that no one knows his time. Only God knows that. But we need to keep working at traveling light. Who knows? This could be the hour God chooses us for something that cannot be done if we’re carrying lots of extra weight.
Now don’t worry about me having too few books. Good grief. I still have hundreds of books lining my shelves. I kept some I probably should have parted with but kept them because they were gifts “to help you in your ministry.” Traveling light does not mean forgetting those who helped us along the way. We all experience God’s mercy by remembering and telling the stories of our journey.
Are you ready to join me in traveling lighter this spring? Start cleaning off your shelves; let go of those hurts that have held you captive far too long; and then go to your closet and throw away 8 pair of shoes. You'll be barefoot and fancy free, just like me.