Hello I’m Tim Ghali, and this is the devotional for April 28th.

The biggest surprise I’ve had lately is the realization that even in the middle of a quarantine, you can experience something new. And there are a few types of new – the brand new and also the familiar that feels new again.

On the latter, I was cleaning out a closet. Ok, well the truth is I was looking in the closet to figure out how much time it would take to really clean this thing out. It’s that closet that has old digital and electronic things that I’m not sure I want to throw out. I have a digital video camera and a digital stuff. Like my not so old video camera, or my old ipod. Or my really old ipod!

I also found some old CD’s. You probably know that experience of picking up an old CD and just seeing the cover art just takes you back. I found my old classic jazz collection and one of my favorite albums ever – John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme.

I used to listen to this album almost non-stop in the mid-late 90’s during my college years. Grunge music had killed glamour rock, then Kurt Cobain died, and grunge faded. My favorite band U2 did a few experimental albums, and I hadn’t quite found Radiohead yet. Rock and roll kinda died for a bit all that was left was gangster rap, boy bands were exploding, and Brittany Spears was about to take over. Not much there for me. And so there I was listening to Coltrane and Miles Davis and Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday.

Well of course, I’ve had to listen to this album to take me back to all that. If you listen close enough, you can smell the cologne you used to wear back then – Polo Sport and Tommy Hillfiger.

It was a fun ride back to memory lane.

When we went into the quarantine period, it felt like a retreat, a forfeiture of freedom, a time to play it safe. And often we don’t learn much when we are in retreat and hunkered down in safety.

In this space, we get to revisit all our familiar aspects of life.

Our relationships, family, friendships, and even for people like me, who are quarantined with 5 other people in the house, there have been many moments to revisit the quietness of the soul.

In this space, we get to revisit our clutter, both the physical clutter our garages, and closets and basements that we’ve collected. The clutter on our phones and computers. But also the clutter in our souls too.

6 weeks ago, I knew I’d have to clear out some of the clutter and I’ve appreciated the voices that have pointed that out from thinkers I follow on twitter to some of our pastoral and ministry staff who have given these devotionals.

And you know how it is, when you clear out a closet, you get to repurpose that closet for other uses.

A similar thing happens when you clear out the clutter in your soul too.

Lately, I’ve been confronting my need to get things done and to get things done in a certain way by a certain time to a certain standard for a certain end-result. And on and on.

I make lists, I set timers, I check things off, I even read the articles that warn me about the dopamine hit my brain receives when I check things off the list. And I’m reminded of two things – Don’t get addicted to the act of getting things done – and make the list count.

I mean that’s a whole devotional onto itself, the idols of ambition and productivity.

I could make a case that they are better than laziness and idleness but every idol turns and eats away at you from the inside.

I’m trying to clear out that type of clutter. Which left me space to repurpose that part of my soul for something new. Soul care, justice-seeking, missional-living, improving relationships. There’s more space for such Kingdom-hearted pursuits.

This past Sunday, I read from Is. 43:

Don’t revel only in the past, or spend all your time recounting the victories of days gone by. Watch closely: I am preparing something new; it’s happening now, even as I speak, and you’re about to see it. I am preparing a way through the desert; Waters will flow where there had been none.

Is. 43:18-19 (Voice Translation)

If you caught that, before you can see the new thing, you have to stop recounting the old victories and the previous ways of doing things. And instead, you have to watch closely, for the new thing that the Lord is preparing .

This week, in our 7th week of quarantine, could we be even more intentional about clearing out the clutter in our souls and to be open to the new thing that the Lord is doing?

May Jesus be with you this week.