What Do You Fill Your Containers With?

Since being diagnosed with cancer and not being able to do my “typical” daily routines of working and activities, I find myself with an insane number of hours in our home. Now truth be told, I am a homebody, so this isn’t as bad as one might think. But it gives me mucho time to think about what’s in our home.

I like to think of our home as a container. What do I fill it with? Does it all fit? Am I trying to cram the lid shut, hoping all the contents stay in? Do I even like what I have in it? Or are the things going to sit untouched in the back of the fridge because I don’t like it anyways? Is it useful? Does it have meaning behind it? Now let me ask you, does your home reflect who YOU are or just the latest trends that maybe aren’t you? Does everything in your home have a purpose? Whatever you bring into your home, becomes your home. I once heard it said, “Homes are living spaces, not storage spaces.” How do you see your place?

Let me talk about a different container. Our hearts and minds.

Matthew 15:18 says, “But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these things defile a man.”

What you allow your ears to listen to and your eyes to see, matters. We think our brains and our faith will filter out the bad, but the more we allow in that is contrary to God, the more our hearts and minds are influenced.

Our local radio station has a challenge every year to listen to their station for 30 days straight and see if there is a difference in your life. Now I think that’s a great way to get some listeners, but I can’t help but agree with their philosophy. If you are used to listening to secular messages filled with temporary love and empty hope, is that not what we succumb to as well? What if instead, we filled our minds with words of truth? Even while in the car? Now don’t get me wrong, I still will listen to secular music. I haven’t shut myself completely off to it, but I will say, it’s something I can’t listen to constantly because I think it would start to effect my life. I know, that sounds ridiculous, but I know myself and that is just me. I’m not saying that’s you! Hopefully you can dig your feet in a bit more than I can!

What we allow in through our ears and see with our eyes, effects us. That is why as parents we try to sensor what our kids and watch and hear, right? Why do we feel that needs to stop at a certain age? Of course we hope that we have a mindset that is fixed on Christ and can again, filter out certain untruths or mixed messages. But everyday we need to think about what we are letting into our containers of our hearts and minds. For what goes in, must come out.

What are your containers looking like? Is your house a reflection of you? Is it serving the purpose you want it to be serving? How about your heart and mind? What are your eyes seeing and your ears listening to? Is your heart fixed on God, or is it being swayed by the messages and mindset of this world? What we fill our lives and homes with matters. May they all reflect who we are and whose we are, as we strive to be more like the one TRUE God.

And for the record, I’ve been going through every room and asking if something is useful, helpful, or is it just taking up space? Boy is that a process! We have a 7-year-old who is in the “keep everything” phase, which makes this a little tricky, but one day I will miss her little hands staying so busy in our home. We live in a 100-year-old home that doesn’t have much storage, which tells me that people back then could live with A LOT less. I’ve got some work to do…