Clearing Up Space
Before you continue reading I’m going to ask that you don’t judge me about what I am about to say. If you are a well-organized, non-clutter kind of person you might break out into a sweat, so I’m just warning you. Ready? Here it is: I just deleted over 61,000 emails from one of my email accounts. 95% were spam like emails that had never been opened but I absolutely hate going through them. No matter how I try, I can’t seem to get all of them stopped even by going to the email and telling them to stop. They just keep rolling in. It took over an hour to delete emails going back to 2016 and my computer warned me a couple of times: “This webpage is using significant energy. Closing it may improve the responsiveness of your Mac.” To say I had a lot of unnecessary baggage in my Yahoo account is probably an understatement. Even attempting to delete it was slowing everything else down.
I’m thankful for the delete button on computers. There are plenty of things that need to be sent to the trash. Plenty of the things in the trash need to be deleted permanently. They aren’t needed or wanted so they need to go. I wish our brains worked that efficiently. We all have things of the past that need to be sent to the trash and then dumped immediately. However, we are designed by the Creator in such a way that we can never fully dump out all the trash that is there. Those things that slow us down spiritually, emotionally, and even physically may hang around in our mind for longer than we want them to. God didn’t give us a permanent delete button. I assume there is good reason for that since there is generally a good reason for all that He does. I also know He has given us a way to deal with it all.
First, let me take a stab at why we can’t delete it permanently. The things that happen to us and the ridiculous choices we make that came with consequences likely need to be remembered in some form or fashion. Why? Because they protect us from further harm. I still remember the time that I grabbed the iron skillet filled with cornbread by the handle just after my mother pulled it out of the oven. I have not made that mistake again.
I also remember the time I shut a garage door from the outside using the grooves in the door as a grip. Trouble was, that the groove I used for a grip was also the groove between pieces that made up the garage door. I haven’t forgotten the feeling of having fingers stuck in a closed garage door. I also haven’t forgotten the kindness of that stranger who was walking her kids down the road who went inside my garage to open the door to free up those flattened fingers.
Obviously, there are much worse scenarios that we have stuck in our minds, but part of the reason for them being there is to help us make decisions to avoid those events in the future. Animals do the same thing — they are keenly aware of danger around them and that keeps them safe from predators lurking in the woods. God gave us those warning signals to keep us safe. Sometimes those warning signals get stuck on high alert. That causes anxiety and sometimes needs to be addressed with a professional. The system is working, which is the good news, but if the warning signal is going off all the time it might need to be checked.
So what has God given us to deal with it? To put it simply — forgiveness. That is the closest thing to a delete button that we have. It doesn’t remove it completely. The trash may still be there warning us not to get quite as close as before, but forgiveness allows us to let go of the most painful parts of it. Some people mistake forgiveness as some gift we give to people who might not deserve it. While that may be part of it, the longer I do counseling and church work the more I realize that the gift of forgiveness is just as much a gift to the giver of it as it is to the receiver of it. So today, as you filter through the messages of the past, which ones do you need to check the box on and hit the forgive button? You might find that doing so restores some of your spiritual, emotional, and physical space and lets you live with just a little more freedom.
Ben
Photo by Hannes Johnson https://unsplash.com/@hannes