Celebrating What Isn't There

I know that really influenced right now by my new focus on minimalization, but a theme struck me today. As we've been trying to be more intentional what we have in our home/garage/life, I've been struck by the power of what's no longer there. The things we've gotten rid of so far were items that we thought we needed to have around - they added to/strengthened/bolstered our lives in some way. Instead, we're finding that their absence is having a far better impact on our lives than their presence ever made.

Though this is a new realization for us, it's by no means new. This past weekend the world, or at least large parts of it, celebrated the absence of something 2000 years ago - we celebrated the absence of Jesus' body from the tomb. The Pharisees and the Romans thought that keeping his body in that tomb would serve as a form of a trophy - this rebel had been defeated and here was the proof. Even his followers thought that they would find comfort from being able to visit the body, by having it kept to decay in peace within those stone walls. What NO one could have predicted was the power that was found when Christ left the tomb.

The question I have then is this - what "trophies" am I keeping in my life that distract me from the profound place that the empty tomb should rightly hold? What are the things that I'm allowing to clutter my life such that I'm not living with the intentionality with which I would truly desire to live? My call to action is this - to expel these things from my life and NOT replace them with new toys/trophies/clutter, but to keep the empty place they so recently occupied clear as a testimony to the power Christ's victory. I'm not saying that decluttering is a pious work or a spiritual discipline, but for me at least it needs to be about focusing on the important and eliminating the rest.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.
                                - Isaac Watts

Original Photo: Flickr - emeryjl