Advent Message Series - What Are You Waiting For? - Week 4 - Make Room

We come to the final segment of our Advent message series entitled, What Are You Waiting For? … and more importantly we come to the end of the Advent season ... a time to ready our hearts for Jesus.

For the last four weeks, we have been walking and praying, and thinking about the meaning in our own spiritual lives about FOCUS, OBEY, and REJOICE. This week we come to the theme of MAKE ROOM.

I’m not so sure about you, but I really need to work on MAKING ROOM, not only for the Lord, but making room in my life – a sort of spiritual and physical decluttering. I find that sometimes, we can allow ourselves to fill our days, our minds, our hearts and even our houses with so much, that essentially we’ve blocked room for all the important stuff, not the least of which is space for our Lord.

The #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, also a Netflix series, entitled Tidying Up with Marie Kondo: The Original Guide to Decluttering Your Home Once and For All is insightful and may even be helpful for our spiritual lives and reflections this week.

Maybe you’re familiar with the pint-sized, joyful minimalist Marie Kondo, author of the The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up and star of the previously-referenced Netflix show. But in addition to everything one can learn from her, other than how to fold, organize, and declutter, perhaps on this fourth Sunday of Advent we can also explore four lessons in that same vein that can spark more joy in our life.

1. LEARN HOW TO LET GO

Oftentimes, it can feel hard to throw away something that we’ve classified as sentimental. Such things might include scrapbooks with old photos, wedding invitations, birthday cards from fifteen years ago, all stashed away in drawers, closets, and under the bed. It can surely feel difficult to part with them, but the truth is that our relationships are experiences not contained within an object.

What about spiritually – what bad memories, experiences, thoughts, etc. can we let go? – things that produce negative energy … that are taking up space? Think of a few now ... We can’t move forward unless we’re willing to let go of the past – especially those items that are toxic, preventing us from experiencing and sharing true joy.

2. LEARN HOW TO HAVE GRATITUDE FOR EVERYTHING IN YOUR LIFE

I’m sure that many of us have felt the rush of purchasing a new suit, shirt, vestment, tie, blouse, outfit, whatever, only to wake up the next day, certain that there’s something else we need to buy in order to feel happy. We can make a conscious choice to appreciate what we have, rather than always seeking for more.

What about with spiritual things? Gifts, that come to us from God? Are we connected to precisely how special we really are in God’s eyes, or are we always looking for what we don’t have … comparing ourselves to others? Let’s take a moment to be grateful for the gifts that God has given us.