junk

With the industry I am in, and more specifically, within my company, "your" desk is never your desk.

I work on a specific project for a certain period of time, after the process is done, I move on to a new project. But since all our project are done for different competing clients, everyone has to sit in the area designated for the project. So when I say I "move on" to a different project, I mean that I literally box up all my stuff and submit a "Relocation Request" and all my stuff gets moved to a new cube, on a new floor, of a new building.

Well, it's time for me to move again. My project (or least my part on this project) has come to an end and it is time to pack up and move. I'll start a new project next week, but for now, I just have to pack. And don't get me wrong, packing will not take too much time, but as I begin this process I realize how much junk I have. I am walking back and forth to the recycling bin throwing out so much paper that I have saved over the past few months. I have way more pens and highlighters than when I started this project. And most of the stuff I've
accumulated are not needed.

It's weird to think about how this stuff just compiled. I didn't mean to save up a bunch of papers only to be recycled in a few months. I didn't realize that I was collecting writing utensils. But I have. And (ready for the spiritual parallel?) I believe that it is the same way that sin grows in our lives, my life. I have never woken up and said to myself "Today let's gossip!" That would be absurd and I would smack myself. But gossip happens slowly. I have never thought, "Let's lust!" But it slowly accumulates, a glace here, a look there, then a stare, then a stray thought. Sin isn't bad because it hits like a bomb. But it creeps in and slowly grows. It builds on itself. It is junk.

But the Good News is that Christ Jesus has defeated sin. He has died to the effects of sin and risen victoriously over it. And that life is promised for us. I'm not saying that I will never sin again because I have been baptized in Jesus' name. But what I am saying is that in him, sin isn't our master, God is. We don't have to allow sin to grow and to accumulate like the junk in my cube. God is there to clean us up. To heal us. And to give us true life.

If you have junk in your life, you don't need to explain where it came from (although knowing may help prevent it in the future), but you need to go to God and have him clean you up. Don't try to do it yourself, I'll tell you right now, it's useless. Only God has conquered sin. Only in him is there freedom.

amen