Is Your Mind Too Cluttered?

“All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless” Ecclesiastes 2:23

   Years ago I found myself in an office where the walls were cluttered with signs.

    Everywhere you looked, large, small, even tiny signs could be found with a wide variety of sayings and quotes. But the sign that stuck out from the rest, paradoxically, was the sign that said: Simplify.

   That office and its multitude of signs struck me as a metaphor for my own mind. It is too often cluttered with thoughts and ideas going this way and that. I am being pulled in one direction and then another just as my eyes bounced from one sign and its message to the next in that office.

   How easy it is to let our minds get cluttered with thoughts, ideas, fears, anxieties, and doubts. How much better it would be to quiet our busy minds and focus instead on God.

   When we turn our minds toward God rather than chasing after endless ideas and thoughts that carry us away from what is most important, we remove the endless clutter that weakens our focus and fruitlessly scatters our thoughts.

   I think if that had been my office I would have removed every sign and added only one in their place: Trust in God. This is the sign every Christian should have foremost in their thoughts.

    When all of our gimmicks and ideas fall flat, when all the best plans we can come up with fall short of our needs, it is then time to turn to God and fill our minds with Him instead.

    When you live with illness your life can quickly fill up with worries and cares, leaving you with scattered thoughts instead of focusing upon the one important thought: JESUS.

    Prayer: Dear Lord, still our busy thoughts and free our cluttered minds. Fill our hearts and minds instead with You. Amen.