Clutter and the Kingdom

I have mentioned here occasionally that I am a bit of a neat freak. I like my kitchen counters clean and bare, my closet color coded and my books arranged by height. Three items on the dining table form a clutter in my head, and I utterly dislike the feeling of going to bed with dishes in the sink. Once, taking a women's class at church the speaker told us we did not have to submit to the cleanliness bondage, for there is no inspector that will knock on your door to check if you dusted your shelves and vacuumed under the couch. My answer to her? But I am the inspector!

So you get the picture of what my house looks like on a daily basis, except for extreme cases of sickness, pregnancy fatigue, or excessive business (I am not that crazy and won't trade in sleeping hours for cleaning, ever!). Pair that with a love for making things homey, and you got a cleaning obsessed and always on the search for new ways to organize/declutter/simplify home maker. 

That is why I love Simple Mom's yearly Project Simplify so much. I was actually quite bummed to not take part in it this year because we had just put our house up for sale and I figured I should do it when I moved. Yeah, still waiting on that to happen. (By the way, I did take part in it last year and loved it!). 

I recently read Simplify, by Joshua Becker, which talks about how we can be rational minimalists, not the type that has one piece of furniture in the living room, but that has enough and only that which we need. I loved it off the bat and immediately started working out decluttering plans. 

Two days later, the church had an announcement of a garage sale to raise proceeds for missions. It felt like a confirmation that this needed to be done. But more so, I felt more inspired than I ever did before. With every piece of kitchen gadget and craft supply, instead of thinking  Won't I need it eventually? my heart would tug and go Can this raise money for the Kingdom?

So I went through my house and made a decision. Purging for it's own sake may be healthy, but doing it with a purpose to bring Glory to God, just like anything else in life, is so much more worth it.