It's that time of year again. I look in my garage and basement, inspect closets and file cabinets, and resolve to clean out the clutter. I make this vow with all seriousness, complete with every intention to carry out my mission. Just as I have every year. A few things may get tossed, but for the most part, I find myself clinging to...let's face it...junk. Well, it may be junk, but it's my junk..

So many things have memories attached to them, and usually good ones. Though I have to admit, I have more than a few that have long lost their meaning. But there's a problem with such things. Clinging to the past can affect us in the present. It can bind us to what was and blind us to what is.

There's a passage in the Bible that for a long time puzzled me. Every time I read it, I found myself thinking how cold Jesus was being. He had set out for Jerusalem and sent messengers to a Samaritan village to get things ready for Him. But the people there did not welcome Him, so Jesus and the disciples went to another village. On the way, three men approached Him.

As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.

He said to another man, Follow me. But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.

Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family." Jesus replied, No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God. (Luke 9:57-62)

The reply to the first guy I understood. Jesus wasn't saying not to follow Him. He was telling him that doing so would be difficult. What about the other two? They just wanted to bury a father and say goodbye to family. That sounds reasonable, yet Jesus' words to them were stern. Where's all that "love one another" stuff? But Jesus wasn't really talking about burials or goodbyes. He was talking about priorities.

Notice that both men made something very clear. First let me... Before they could follow Jesus, something else stood in the way. Something else had priority. And that something was their past - memories of a dead father, memories of times with family. Their past had priority. Clinging to their memories prevented them from making new ones with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Our past, with all the treasures and junk, has brought us to this very point in time. None of it is useless. We learn from memories and experiences, but their purpose is to prepare us for today. We cannot live in past, if we want to live in Christ. Jesus is all about today. Everything must take second place to Him, and sometimes in order to follow Him, we have to get rid of the clutter in our lives.

Honor and cherish your family and friends. But don't cling to the past. Today is a new beginning. Today is a new opportunity. Today is a new life.