"Are You Clear Minded or Clutter Minded?"

by WXAN & KMHM General Manager, Doug Apple

Sometimes reading the Bible is like waving a net through a group of butterflies and hoping you catch one really good one. I read through several verses (or even chapters) and hope and pray that one really good “something” will leap off the page and set my heart on fire. And you know what? It seems like God comes through every time.

One verse that's been in my net lately is a portion of First Peter 4:7 “…be clear minded…so that you can pray.” 

Let me ask you, do you pray enough? Most of us would admit that we probably don't. Well, why not? One reason is that we are “clutter minded” instead of clear minded. There are so many things in our lives that seem so much more important and urgent than prayer. And the reason our priorities are out of whack is because we are not clear minded. We are not thinking clearly.

So what can we do to be more “clear minded”? We need to remove the clutter. 
If your home is cluttered, what do you do? Like my wife says when she goes in the girls' room, “You need to get rid of all the junk!”

To be clear minded like God wants us to be, we need to get rid of all the junk. Like what? Like anything that clouds our thinking. Like anything that makes God seem more distant or confusing or irrelevant.

What kind of things might that include? Well…there are some typical items on the Clutter Checklist. In this little article I will address just this one: cluttered schedules. We just get too busy. Life becomes too harried. We are so busy running here and there that our minds become cluttered with our activities and hectic schedules and we lose track of what is important. To clear our minds we need to clear our schedules.

I was in a small group meeting recently and the question was asked of the wives, “What is your husband's favorite 'lazy day' activity?” Most of them said their husband's were so busy that they had no lazy day activities. Oops! God's plan was for one lazy day a week! It's a time to unclutter the mind.

So…what is cluttering your mind? Clear it out! Unclutter. Then you will find that God is closer and easier to hear and understand than you might have imagined!