Glorified Storage Bins

           While walking the pooch very early this morning (it's a very, very cold day), I couldn't help but notice how many cars were parked outside of the garages in the neighborhood.  I felt pretty smug, as ours are kept inside of our heated garage.  No cold seats or scraping of windows for us.  Then I got to thinking about one of our neighbors who goes through a ritual perhaps 3 times a year.  It's called, "I've got to clean my garage out."  Stuff gets shuffled, moved about, a minimal amount gets tossed in the garbage, and still, 3 times a year, there is never enough room in the garage to park a car.  Cold seats and scraping windows takes a second row to stuff.
          
           It seems to me that many garages are glorified storage bins.  And I know some folks who have those glorified storage bins and still rent storage bins for the stuff that won't fit in the storage bins called garages.  Stuff.  Lots of stuff.  So much stuff that the glorified storage bin gets full so another is rented.

           Our hearts are sometimes a lot like storage bins aren't they?  Garages aren't really built to be storage bins, and neither are our hearts, and yet our hearts get so full of crap sometimes that they harden, and then we harden.  When our hearts are full of stuff (worry, anger, sin, lust, fear, doubt...and the list goes on) our capacity to love, forgive, laugh, and, yes, communicate diminishes. When our hearts become storage bins it becomes much more difficult and challenging to park God in our hearts where He rightfully belongs.

           I am sure that when the Great Architect built us, He in no way designed our hearts to be glorified storage bins, any more than the architects who design houses with garages envisioned them to become storage bins. 

Bottom Line Thought:  Has your heart become a storage bin?  Why?  How can you go about doing some house cleaning to free up space for the One?