What to do when you run out of storage space

My iPhone has not backed itself up in the last 96 days. It tells me this as I am trying to retrieve some super important piece of information from it. The home screen locks and this message appears. This Phone has not been backed up to iCloud in the last 96 days. What? And then everything stops working. You have no more storage it tells me. And I’m left staring at the locked screen wondering why I had no idea this could even happen.

Apparently, you can store too much stuff on your phone. And when you do that, your phone will quit working correctly until your either buy more storage or delete all of the random apps taking up space in your phone’s memory. I had no idea. Google had to tell me what to do. Because here’s the thing. I can’t seem to survive the day without a working phone.

Yeah. How did we do life back in the old days when we had to remember people’s phone numbers or get directions from a paper map folded in our glove boxes? I don’t know, but I do know that as I stared at the spinning blue circle on my phone and waited to see if I had fixed the problem, I realized it may be more than just my phone that’s overloaded with stuff.

It is no surprise really that I didn’t know my phone was about to explode from all of the information is was storing.  I often go through life the same way. I gather the moments, the worries, the needs, the people, the events and even the beautiful things unfolding around me into my own invisible storage bin. And I hold them there.

Maybe you do this too? Especially with the hard parts of life; the struggling kid, the stubborn finances, the tricky relationships. We tend to hold those things close; to store them in the deepest part of our hearts hoping that holding onto them will fix them. We say things like: I’ve got this. I know how to solve this problem. If I just hold on a little longer, things will get better. I can handle it. Everything is fine. Our mouths form those words while our hearts sink under the weight of everything we keep piling onto ourselves.

But the problem is this. We will run out of storage space long before life runs out of hard things to throw our way. And then what?

I stare at my locked up phone and wonder where to put the things it is holding. 96 days worth of information? How am I supposed to hold onto to all of that?

“My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen [us]  by his Spirit — not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength” (Ephesians 4:14 Msg.).

The truth is; we are not meant to hold onto it all.

When too much of life gets piled into our arms and too much gets stored on our internal hard drives, we have to know what to do. We have to know where to go. Or we will lock up as tight as my iPhone. And nothing will work.

God didn’t create us to hold everything. He never intended for us to be able to carry the load of all that goes wrong here in this world or in our lives.

He built us to need him. He built our souls with holes that can only be filled by him. The stuff we try to store and to hold? He knows we aren’t going to be able to handle it. It’s only going to lock us down.

“God is our refuge and strength; a very present help in times of trouble” (Psalm 46:1). He wants us to learn how to believe this; how to live this out in real life. And it isn’t always easy to remember.

Apparently, the way that you fix a phone with a problem like mine is to plug it into the wall, give it extra storage space and leave it for an hour while it unloads everything it’s been carrying around.

And I hear the Spirit whisper over the crowded countertops where the phone sits charging, “This is how it works with you too. You come to me. You bring me all of the things. Lay them down. I am your source. Bend your knees and let me have what you’ve been holding.”

It’s not a magic spell or an immediate cure, though. Handing over all of the hard things that we carry around doesn’t mean that they will be any less hard. It just means we don’t have to carry them by ourselves.

So, take a minute today and think about your own storage limit. When was the last time you downloaded some of the parts of life that you are carrying around? When was the last time you admitted that you can’t do it anymore?

Be encouraged, friend. You don’t even have to Google how to fix this. Bend your knees, bow your head. Jesus is right there with you. And I promise, even if it’s 96 days worth of stuff you’ve been holding on to? He’s got this.“For in him [Jesus] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16-17).