Faith in Organizing

Where does my deep desire to be organized come from?

My belief. My faith in God. My desire to live a life for Him and not myself.

While on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic (a second time), my heart cried tears of disgust and embarrassment at the life I was living. Not that we lived an extravagant life – but in my eyes, I knew it was a life that God would not be pleased with – a life filled with too much “stuff.” In seeing the poverty, yet joy the Dominicans had, caused shame in me. I know that experience may not be true for everyone as all are not convicted in the same way. God used that trip to influence me in a way I was not expecting. We were there to help build a house – I came home with a broken heart – a heart broken for the life I was living. That is what jumpstarted my desire to organize. Over the past couple of years and still today, the moments on that trip are still being lived out. I remember while building the house, they reused plywood from another project for the cement forms. Something so little, yet mind-boggling to me. You “rent” wood – you don’t buy new. Why buy new when you can buy/rent used for a MUCH cheaper price? That example really resonated with me. That started an idea of reusing, repurposing, and recycling what I can in our home, while donating what we have no use for so someone else can benefit from it. A trip that taught me to live with less. A trip that changed my life. A trip that is changing my life.

I believe the Bible to be absolute truth. In and through my convictions of what the Bible says, I believe the Bible speaks in deep, concrete, life-changing, and influential ways, on why being organized and living with less, is something we should all consider.

Here are just a handful of examples (trust me there are MANY more!)

• Convicted? As my husband always says “you can’t pull a U-Haul behind a hearse.” If someone were to break into your home, what would the robber think? That they hit the jackpot when they see all that you own? Or would he think it wasn’t worth his time because there wasn’t anything worth grabbing? Do you store up so many earthly possessions that you don’t have room for them all? What about the “treasures” you are storing up in your heart? What about your heart? What values and characteristics do you possess that no one can steal? As the verse says, “wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

1 Timothy 6:6-8 Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. 7 After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world, and we can’t take anything with us when we leave it. 8So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content.

• Common sense, right? Since we came into this world with but a breath, we will leave it without a breath. So why are we almost never content? I can think of very few people who are truly content. I would not classify myself as one of them – I know I have a long ways to go, as this is something I am daily working on. Are you content? If not, why not? What will it take for you to be content?

Hebrews 13:5 – Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.

• What if we all tried to live with less? What if we all spent more time giving, rather than filling our homes with things that we do not need?

Living with less comes out of a deep conviction within me. Going through the 100 Days of Less was sometimes draining as I too, walked through the same steps. In times of doubt of whether it was worth it or not, I grabbed my handy-dandy manual for my life (the Bible) and in just a few words, I was convicted to keep going.

My faith is something I am not ashamed of. It is what drives me – what drives my life.

A simple mission trip to Dominican Republic.
A life changed.

Picture above is of a hut where bricks are made by hand. Can you imagine?