"Unnecessaries"

Doug and I recently got new phones. Thanks to online shopping, we each got a BlackBerry for free with our contract upgrade. Woo-hoo!

I must confess that I was one of those who said, "Why do you need something fancy like a BlackBerry? I mean, come on - a cell phone is supposed to be a phone! Why do you need all of that other stuff?"

Now, the bug has bitten. I really like my BlackBerry! The organizational aspects are fantastic, and I have been able to consolidate everything into two places - my planner and my BlackBerry. Yep, I'm one of those people now. I am hooked!

Having a BlackBerry, though, has also raised some thoughts in my mind. For the first week or so after UPS delivered it, I felt that I was in over my head. Setting up and learning a new cell phone can be intimidating anyway, but add to that the more extensive properties of some of these more elaborate systems and it can be downright overwhelming. There are so many options, functions, settings, and operations.

Even now there are many things that I still haven't explored and learned. But, one thing I have done has been to eliminate some of the unnecessary features. There is a beautiful little option on my BlackBerry that allows me to hide icons that I won't use. I can get them out of my way and, although they are still technically on my phone, to me they are gone.

Like a new BlackBerry, we typically have too much "stuff" in our lives, whether it be unnecessary material possessions, unnecessary activities scheduled in our day, unnecessary relationships that pull us away from the Lord, unnecessary habits, or any other unnecessary distractions that course through our lives. Like removing the unnecessaries on a new phone, we must be willing to remove the unnecessaries from our lives, settling down with only the things that allow us to function as we were intended - honoring and praising God with all that we have and are.