One of my favorite jobs at the beginning of each New Year is to go through my file cabinets and throw out folders of information I no longer need. It’s mostly financial documents that the IRS requires US taxpayers to store for five years or more.
But this year, I did more. I looked into some old storage boxes in the back of a closet that contained folders from a decade or more back, and I thought, “I do not need to store these papers. This is a waste of space in my home and unnecessary burden to keep working around during the year.” I pulled them out, and started heaving volumes of documents.
As I yanked files, sorted papers, and filled up the garbage bin, I thought about mental file folders we carry around in thought from times past that need to be discarded.
Mental data like, “I was not smart when I was a kid, so suffer today. I had a health problem years ago that I continue to suffer from. I inherited a shortcoming from my parents.” These are like file folders of information collected in the past that we continue to store in our mind, and suffer from today. They need to be discarded and burned!
Storing cartons of information in our home closets my not be noticed most of the year. They are out of sight and out of mind, most of the time. But they are still there. On occasion, we open that closet door, look in, see the boxes, and think back to what those boxes contain. The information is still floating around in thought because it is being held onto, even if remotely, and we remember it or are pulled back into it when we finger through the files.
The same happens in consciousness. We may stick bad memories into the background of thought and pretend like they are not there, but they haven’t gone anywhere. They need to be handled with spiritual truth and permanently removed.
So, if you haven’t done your mental New Year cleaning, now is a good time. Clean out the closets of error and fill them up with spiritual truth. You’ll feel much better when you’re finished.
Your message was perfect for me this morning. I have had some troubling thoughts lately about a situation that occurred five years ago and one that I thought I had handled. But in the past few days I was mentally looking through those “old files” and your message reminded me that I need to “permanently remove them” with spiritual truth. Thank you for this important direction.
Thoughts are so powerful – both ways. I am an adult playing baseball (hardball) in an over 45 league. This is my first time playing in many years. I started to feel apprehensive (fearful – call it what it is) and started wondering if my knees could take catching again and if my arm could zip it down to 2nd base.
As I prepared for bed that night, for the first time, my knee ached and shoulder was so sore… Oh, and I hadn’t even thrown a ball. Crazy!
I immediately corrected thought and am freely practicing. But a what a great lesson in how mental our problems are and then how they manifest physically if we let them! I threw out that file that said catchers suffer from bad knees when older. I am having nothing but fun.
Great example Andrew. Thanks for sharing! We must “catch” the right kind of thoughts, right!
There is a Nurse Aide that has been taking care of me since 2002, that I just adore. She knows that I am a student of C/S and she just broke off with her boy friend. She constantly ruminates all the bad things he did to her and I try to tell her to forget it, forgive him, which is so very important for her to do and move forward. She tells me she can’t forgive him, so what I have been doing in my own thought is playfully asking God to forgive both of them, she and her boyfriend, so that both can move on applicably so neither is hurt by this mortal mind malpractice can’t harm either one.
Thank you so much for this helpful reminder. It comes at an opportune time as I am currently in the process of purging old files. Just as you mentioned, it is very liberating to discard these old things since they open up space, which was filled with unnecessary stuff. Just like thought!
I love purging old stuff. I do my files at the end of a year so I start the New Year already clean and running. When my mother-in-law passed on she left files from the 30’s!!!! It took three solid days of shredding to clean those out! My sister-in-law and I vowed to go to our respective homes and immediately make sure our files were clean and labeled!
I always feel so good when I get rid of clutter. I love driving up to recycle things from my home. I notice how effortlessly my daughter gets rid of stuff. I usually am the recipient of so many great things that they have replaced. It also frees me up to pass stuff on myself. In a sense you are making room for more good to come in.