I am really perfectionistic about some things. But, keeping my office and desk neat doesn’t fall within that part of me. At the end of each day my desk is cluttered with the remnants of that day’s work.

Commentaries, notes, paper, pens, an empty coffee cup, keys, calendar, mail, some post-it notes and several of those little caps that you remove from plastic water bottles. I’m done as the day closes. Time to leave the office; the clutter can wait till tomorrow. Then tomorrow, I just add to it.

Periodically my good wife puts the pressure on. She does that by coming into my office and just doing the work. “Where does this go? Do you need this? When is the last time you opened this book? Why do you have 43 pens on your desk?” I comply and help. And at the end of that process, my office looks like this picture.

Sometimes our lives are cluttered with stuff we don’t need, or stuff we haven’t put in a proper place. The pure and undefiled religion of Christ is designed to enable us to get rid of what we don’t need and put everything in its place. As we receive with meekness the Word, follow Christ and serve others, order is brought into our lives that is part of our coping with difficulty. We can run the race without the weight (Heb. 12:1,2), and we can press on (Phil. 3:14).