Pay Attention to Your “Virtual Clutter!”

Over the years, I’ve suffered a few massive hard drive failures. Whether due to electric surges or hardware failures, the experiences often resulted in a loss of most of what I’d worked on, up to that point. In earlier days of computers, we weren’t as apt to back up files or create separate storage, if for no other reason we didn’t trust technology in its entirety. We kept hard copies of work around to rebuild for that inevitable failure, but otherwise, didn’t amass virtual clutter like we do today. Since those times, I’ve been fortunate to have computers that lived long and prospered (most over a decade). Now, I have the opposite problem: virtual clutter. I keep too many files because I don’t discipline myself to clean out, set up, and then back up what I have.

If that’s the biggest problem I have (it’s not, but I digress), I’d say I am pretty lucky. It doesn’t change the fact, however, that sometimes my computer needs a good file cleaning and backup completed on it. As of this moment, I have two desktops, one laptop, and a tablet our church uses. There are many files I’ve carried around from computer to computer. When I sit down to finally clean the virtual clutter, there will be well over 1,000 files that aren’t needed.

How does this relate to our spiritual lives? You may be surprised to see the connection between virtual clutter and our faith.

Pay attention to your virtual clutter

Years ago while doing a virtual clutter clean out, God spoke the following words to me: “Pay attention to your virtual clutter!” I thought about it and realized what God was saying to me was, indeed, a relevant and important message. For years, I’d allowed my “virtual clutter” to amass. If I’m to be honest, it was very easy to do. Virtual clutter – all those files, photos, duplicates, old letters, documents, and unnecessary virtual statements that I’d amassed – were not tangible, visible things that piled up in front of me. I couldn’t visibly see they were becoming a problem. It wasn’t like having a pile on my desk that blocked my mouse or computer screen. There was no pile of junk mail infringing on my dining room table.

Virtual clutter sneaks in and masks itself as legitimate files, work projects, important documents, and relevant photos because they blend right in with the rest of truly needed and important things housed on our technical devices. As we go about our day and we keep adding new documents and new files to the old, the virtual clutter gets lost in the shuffle. It goes largely ignored, all the while lurking on our devices.

There were many things I’d forgotten about handling, overlooked projects, things that needed to be done that I wasn’t doing, and of course, backing up the machine. The virtual clutter that I couldn’t point to and say clearly, “this is here, it is causing a problem,” was causing me to be inefficient. Having so much of it delayed addressing important things that I needed to take care of, right now.

Clutter that distracts from purpose

Every day, we turn on our devices and go to use them. It’s likely there are at least a few hundred files on our machines that we don’t need.

• They hide in plain sight every time we try to find something or look for something.
• They take up space on our storage devices, whether on cloud, hard drive, or backup drive.
• When we go to look for something else, they are in the way.
• They stare at us, in the face, reminding us in subtle ways of things we are no longer assigned to do or supposed to be doing.

There are also files that contain errors, such as missing pictures or links, that need cleaning, fixing, or redesigning. Maybe some of them are from programs that we no longer have or are no longer made. These files are a massive walk through the past several years:

• Pictures of people we never hear from or never speak with anymore.
• Files reminiscent of joint projects that went awry or were never completed.
• Memories of things we started to try and forge ahead after dealing with the wrongs we sometimes run into in ministry.
• Projects that were our ideas, and not God’s.

Looking over virtual clutter helps us to see the number of distractions we often have that we aren’t always aware are there. Continually encountering things that are no longer part of our assignments (or our lives, for that matter) distract us from our purpose. They impact our efficiency and encouragement. Getting rid of them matters, if for no other reason than there’s no reason to hold on to things that are no longer functional.

What’s your virtual clutter?

Obviously virtual clutter is a real thing. In my case, it was impeding my work of ministry in different ways. Virtual clutter isn’t always found on our computers, however. There are many things we need to address in our lives and work that lurk, blending in with the more important things of our lives. They distract us, take our time, and cause us to avoid where we should be and what we must do. This “virtual clutter” is all around us. Because it doesn’t appear to be what it is, we assume it’s not there.

So clean house! Make a clean sweep of malice and pretense, envy and hurtful talk. You’ve had a taste of God. Now, like infants at the breast, drink deep of God’s pure kindness. Then you’ll grow up mature and whole in God. (1 Peter 2:1-3, MSG)

Even God tells us that we need to clean house. The issues God addresses are those that lurk around us in ways and often go unnoticed. We might deem them to be a bad day, a “joke” at someone else’s expense, arrogance, or a slip up, but they can cause us – and others – to stumble in faith if we aren’t careful. We all need to take a step back and discipline ourselves to recognize the hidden-in-plain-sight things that keep us weighed down, inefficient, and problematic…all because we won’t go on a cleaning spree and clean things up!

Start cleaning!

• What is it in your life that needs to be cleaned up?
• Do you spend too much time on social media?
• Do you spend too much time arguing with people on that forum?
• Are you not spending enough time with God?
• Are you distracted by relationships and people that God has long told you to let go?
• Is it time for you to move, either physically or spiritually, but you keep busying yourself with projects and work so that such movement becomes impossible?
• Do you use your relationships as an excuse to keep from obeying God?
• Do you harbor bad attitudes, gossip, hatred, or embitterment?

Whatever it is that you need to address, remember virtual clutter seems like something perfectly excusable. In reality, they are issues that take you to a place where clutter after clutter makes it harder and harder to do what’s necessary.

Do yourself a huge favor: clean up some virtual clutter. Take time and pray and seek God. Read something spiritual and sound. While you are at it, do some physical cleaning too, so nothing, anywhere, can keep you from pursuing all you are supposed to be and where you are supposed to be going.

And, with that, I am going to go and clean off my desktop.