‘Create in me an uncluttered heart…’

So, I sit down to reflect on sincerity, simplicity, and submission to God, and my brain fills with clutter — submissions for the liturgy book I am editing that need to be processed, meeting requests, thinking of a meal to cook for night shelter, checking FaceBook…

Then the home wifi — which is working fine — ceases to connect with our printer and Kindles. That clutters my mind even more and distracts me with all kinds of tecchie kerfuffle from blessed and helpful thoughts.

‘Create in me an uncluttered heart…’

Then a night shelter volunteer sends a message responding to a need with a guest and I am full of clutter of a different kind. The clutter of policies and protocols, the clutter of ensuring we don’t do good things in unhelpful ways…

And I am praying, ever more fervently, ‘create in me an uncluttered heart.’

usually Psalm 51:10 is translated pure heart but the original has the sense of a heart undistracted by anything other than focusing on God. So often our hearts are cluttered by worries of all kinds, resentments, keeping score, feeling responsible for everything, wanting to be right, and the psalmist reminds us, urges us to pray for an uncluttered heart, one that can focus on God and choose to walk his way.

And in the same spirit, James tells us that our religion is simple — caring for one another and having an uncluttered devotion to God.

He echoes Jesus in this where in the sermon on the mount he says,

 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

The Greek for healthy here implies generous. The Greek for unhealthy here implies stingy. See the context in v19-24 which is about treasure and devotion. Why? Because the original word is ‘single’. And the single eye in Hebrew idiom means properly focused on God and our neighbour.

So, Proverbs 22:9, 23:6, 28:22 where the focus is on good eyes and bad. And note what the vineyard owner says at the end of the parable in Mt 20:15…

Hence James telling us that our faith boils down to uncluttered trust in God and practical care of our neighbour (1:27). And this leads to simplicity of living. Now we have to work at this because life in the modern world is so busy, so full of stuff and distractions, so full of glittery things that dazzle our attention.

‘Create in me an uncluttered heart…’

So, what is cluttering up your heart at the moment? Maybe take a couple of minutes to jot down everything that comes to mind. (now these might be good things, important things taking up your think space; list them because they might at this moment be preventing you from having an uncluttered heart)

‘Create in me an uncluttered heart.’

Next time, I’ll return to my reflections on the Rob Rinder quote about the church (as promised)