My summer vacation has consisted of cleaning and organizing my house. I found very quickly that this task was going to be time consuming and would be composed of many, many, MANY stages. I think there were 27 different piles of junk on my dining room table alone to be sorted and trashed or placed in the proper room.

Why is my house this much of a pit of clutter in the first place? Well, I have really long list of excuses. They are sound reasons: crazy school year, bouts with some nasty viruses, the emotional toll of grieving my mom’s death. My house reflects the chaos that has been my life for a year.

The realization I have come to is that the clutter didn't happen overnight. It was a result of a process of little things that were neglected over a long time. My house reflects, in many ways, the states of my mind and heart during some very difficult days.

States of mind and heart are not one time only moods or feelings. They are built up of minutes, hours, weeks, months and all the emotions that make up those times: Brokenheartedness. Hope. Confusion. Happiness. Strength. Weakness. Sadness. Tiredness. Fulfillment. Love.

When these changing emotions become your cornerstones, your realities, your ways of living life, you’ll be lost in a sea of contradictory and constantly changing beliefs and truths. I do not think most of us who are believers deliberately walk away from God. Rather, I think we drift away gradually when we mistake our passing feelings and moods for the Truth of The Gospel.

A friend shared this quote with me as we discussed the day to day grind of daily life and the negative attitudes it creates:

“It’s the little things in life that bother us. You can sit on a mountain but not on a tack”

--From Emilie Robbins in Country magazine, February/March 2014

While the big traumas of life can shake our faith, often it’s the buildup of lesser battles—the daily “tacks” that poke us—that drive us gradually away from the Truth of God and our relationship to Him. As Pastor Nate preached on Sunday, spiritual warfare is daily. It’s not a “once in a while” problem. We are constantly being barraged with our fears, doubts, and insecurities.

The Enemy uses this mental and emotional clutter to wreak havoc in our faith. It’s a gradual wearing down of our defenses.

The great news is that we are not alone to fight this. We have the support of the Creator of the Universe, the Messiah and Redeemer. We have the most powerful resources in the world at our disposal to hold us fast while we remember that we are children of the King. We don’t have to be victims to the whims of our fleeting emotions and weaknesses. We don’t have to futilely try to save ourselves from self-destruction. The saving is already finished.

Pray at all times. Read the Word. Hold it close.

When darkness closes in during tough times, keep praying and keep reading.
When you are tired and frustrated and helpless, keep praying and keep reading.
When your mind and heart are cluttered with the negative, keep praying and keep reading.
Jesus has already won this war.