God always has plans, and more often than not they’re not ours.
As men, that’s tough. We spend our lives making plans, working plans, following the plans. It’s not always a bad thing.
Maybe it’s wisdom I’m getting with the grey hairs, but I’m learning to pay attention to God’s plans.
Sometimes, he lets you know it’s time to let things go. Time to put down a bunch of responsibilities you fought for a decade ago. Like it’s time to start something new, you know?
Moving house will do that. A garage sale, or in my case, an estate sale, made me realize something.
A lot of what we fight for, the stuff we gather and shelve and lock doors to keep safe... isn’t all that important. How can I say that? Because something can change in the future, and you’ll put it on a table in your front yard with a price sticker.
Moments like that make you really wonder what’s really important. What’s actually worth fighting for.
I’ve lived for 39 years at the same place, two homes on 28 acres fed by underground spring-fed ponds. Over the years, we turned it into a beautiful park and a very peaceful place.
My wife Kitty and I raised children and grandchildren there, and made a lot of good memories. That’s the dream for many of us, to find a good place and make it better.
We weren’t sure that we would ever move again.
Then, late last year, maybe right around Christmas, Kitty received an invite from somebody about some eight-acre tracts, about 12 minutes away from us.
I’m not a young man any more. The upkeep on 28 acres compared to 8 acres is very different. So we drove over to have a look, and realized it was a new doorway on how to life. We bought one.
Our contractor started working on building a new in March. We’re set to move in November.
Naturally, downsizing means we needed to get rid of a lot of stuff. We had a shop, a barn, and a large outbuilding where we stored our camper and boat. All that was a big deal for us for years. Now, it was good, but in the way of our new life.
We decided for an estate sale.
A couple, professionals who manage estate sales, helped Kitty and I go through everything for about two months. We decided what to sell, what to give away, and what to keep.
Then we moved everything down to the guest house. The couple arranged everything, staged it all, and got it done.
I’m not a man who goes to estate sales or garage sales. My life has been spent gathering things, not giving it all away. So it was interesting for me to watch it all, to meet the guests and buyers and interact with them.
It was a success. We got rid of a whole lot of stuff that we don’t need.
A lot of us follow the same playbook. Work hard, make a good income, spend it on all the things that make life good.
But if all it takes is a new job or move for you to price it all and let it all go, you gotta ask... how much was it really worth it?
If you want to really find out how much stuff you have, make a decision to see what you can get rid of. You’ll find you’ve got a lot of stuff that you don’t need.
All this ‘stuff’ I thought mattered to a happy home, wasn’t really worth much to me.
Run a check on your life before you get to my age. Look around and ask yourself what changes if you had less to worry about. What could you do different if you weren’t thinking about how to keep it all safe and locked down.
What if family, people, and a home you can actually handle helps you breathe, and be a better servant to the Lord?
Yeah, I guess I’m asking you to unclutter. I hadn’t noticed how much stuff I’d allowed to creep into my life, stuff that I was happy to walk away from.
What new freedom do you create for yourself when you de-stuff, or de-clutter your life?