I'm not going to rant. I promise. I have no room to rant and no room to spout. What I'm learning is at the feet of a hundred other people who know far more than I do and who have lived it out far longer. But there are things brewing in me that have been brewing all of my life and feel ready to spill out, or at least have brewed high enough in my life that I'm ready to start living them out.

When I was 19 I had a dream about a bedroom that was painted apple green, with pretty furniture, painted white floors, and bookcases floor to ceiling, packed with books. So I spent the next half a dozen years trying to replicate that bedroom. To me, it was a place a peace and a place of comfort. It said, "Here you will be happy. Here you will find peace." And I won't deny that my homes, wherever they've been and whatever color they've been painted, have been places of peace. For the most part. They've been places I could come home and feel a sense of knowing. That at least one of my dreams could come true.

A month ago I made a spreadsheet of all my books, listed them cheaply, and watched my two floor to ceiling bookcases empty of my life's collection, my life's idolatry. I kept one box, and it's not even full. I've been giving away everything I own, giving or selling, not even to the highest bidder. Just emptying my life of all the things that define peace to me. I've been divorcing myself from the picture I've had of completion. I said to her yesterday, I'm no fool, I know the moment we think we've learned something is the moment we find that we have not. So I will not rush to say that this season of physical emptiness (or stufflessness) that I'm experiencing is the pinnacle of what I'm going to learn. But I am learning this: I am no less complete without my dreams; I am more complete without them because He is more magnified when He is the only one.

This is so contrary to the norm that I'm almost afraid to say it out loud (afraid that I will get all sorts of "Don't let go of your dreams!" comments). But I'm finding it to be true. Today I'm finding it to be true.

See, I've loved things more than people. And I've loved people more than the gospel. And I've even loved the gospel more than Jesus. And I'm afraid we all might do a lot more of this than we think. Collecting things, furniture, good habits, even marriage or children, a savings account, all of these things can too easily become the goal. A friend called me yesterday, telling me about a sermon he heard recently, in which the speaker talked about really living as though these things are passing away (because they are). But we don't live as though they are.

I'm not saying that I'm living like I am either. I'm not. I'm still packing my car full of things that will make my life easier in Texas and wherever next I go, full of good stewardship, full of things that matter much to me. But I'm leaving one thing behind: I'm leaving comfort behind. Every step of the way I'm aiming to shed a little more comfort and pick up a little more faith.