Barnacles

   This New Year I resolved to scrape away some barnacles.

  No, I don’t own a yacht.  This isn’t the nautical type of barnacles. It is a term I recently heard in a financial discussion.  There it referred to items that attach themselves to our bank account. That gym membership we don’t use, a trial of Pandora we forgot to cancel, and that yearly fee we don’t think about till it is due. They are those things that attach to your money and slow down your ability to make it grow.

  But this idea isn’t just for better finical planning. Life has barnacles. Things you get stuck with that are not useful anymore but we can’t seem to shake them off. Bad habits, odd obligations, time vacuums. We might think they were once useful but now they just help drag us down.

Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise,  making the most of your time, because the days are evil.

Ephesians 5:15-16 

  I don’t think I’ve met the person yet that has more time than they need. There is always something coming up to fill the void. That is why we must be careful to redeem our time, lest it is wasted on things that are not of benefit.

  Want to have more time the year to study the Bible to pray, to reach out to others to share the gospel? It might mean we have to do a little scraping on the things in our lives that have latched on to our time that don’t really need to be there.

  It can be amazing what we can free up if take the effort to get rid of what we don’t need.