Your clutter is blocking God's voice

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Hey, hey, my creative friend.
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Welcome back to Co-Create, the podcast for creatives who are ready to stop forcing the work, start listening for God's direction, and make what they were actually made to make.
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I'm Liz Smoke, author, speaker, lifelong maker, and a person who can somehow fill every available surface just moments after cleaning them off.
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Around here, we follow the maker's way.
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We listen, build, refine, and release.
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But before we can do any of those things well, there has to be room.
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Room to hear, to think, room to notice, and room to receive.
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Because your problem may not be that God has stopped giving you ideas.
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Your life may simply be just too crowded for another idea to land.
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So today, before we make one more thing or start one more project or download another app or ask AI to give us another 10 more possibilities to consider, we are going to clear this room.
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Let me begin with a question that took me nearly 50 years to ask myself.
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Is it possible to be close to God and still be doing all the talking?
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Because I talked to him constantly.
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I prayed, I journaled, I trusted him, I believed I was being led by him.
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I brought him into my decisions and asked him to help with my work, but I eventually realized that I was mostly bringing him my plans that I had already written.
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I would create the vision, I'd choose the destination, draw the map, set the timeline, and then I'd slide the whole beautiful presentation across the table and say, All right, Lord, here's what we're doing.
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I'd love your help.
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I thought I was inviting God into my work, but I was still holding the pen.
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I wasn't asking what he wanted me to make.
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I was asking him to help me become the person I had already decided I was going to be.
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And there's a difference.
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It's a subtle difference because we can be doing wonderful things, faithful things, generous things, things that genuinely serve other people.
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We can be making things for God and never stop long enough to receive anything from him.
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There are two sisters in the Bible who illustrate exactly what this looks like.
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Martha and Mary welcome Jesus into their home.
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Martha immediately gets to work.
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She's preparing, serving, cooking, hosting, karate chopping pillows, making salami flowers, making sure the Lord has everything he needs.
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If Jesus had arrived at my house, I would have been right there with her, wrapping dates and bacon.
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Lord, we are so honored to have you.
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Please ignore that pile over there.
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Would you like something to drink?
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Flat or sparkling water?
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Are you warm?
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Are you cold?
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You see, Martha wasn't doing anything bad.
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She was serving Jesus.
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Her sister Mary, however, stopped.
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She sat at his feet and listened.
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And eventually Martha became frustrated.
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Understandably so.
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She was working while Mary was just sitting there.
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I know that you've known this feeling.
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So Martha asked Jesus to tell Mary to get up and help.
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Listen to how tenderly Jesus answers Martha.
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He says, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful.
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Martha, Martha.
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He says her name twice, not like an angry boss reprimanding an employee who has failed, but like someone who deeply loves a woman who is wearing herself out.
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Sound familiar?
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You are worried and troubled about many things, not evil things, not selfish things, many good things.
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But Mary chose the one thing that was necessary.
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She stopped long enough to receive.
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This story gets me every time because Martha was doing everything for Jesus and still missing Jesus.
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She was busy serving the guest while Mary made room for his presence.
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And I've been Martha.
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Good gracious, I have been Martha.
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I was a Martha who was absolutely certain she was a Mary.
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I prayed while I worked, I talked to God throughout my day.
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I made things I believed would honor him.
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But even in all that conversation, I rarely stop talking long enough to ask, what do you want?
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What are you trying to show me?
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What have I filled my life with that is making it difficult to hear you?
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Before we can co-create with God, there has to be room for Him at the center, not a little chair along the edge, not an honorary advisory position, not a quick prayer before we proceed with the plan we've already chosen.
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Room in the center.
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And God shows us how to make that room on the very first page of the Bible.
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In the beginning, the earth is described as formless and empty.
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Those are two different conditions.
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Formless means without structure, no boundary, no distinction between what belongs here, what belongs there.
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Empty means there is nothing filling the structure yet.
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And notice what God does first.
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He does not immediately begin cramming the emptiness full.
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He forms before he fills.
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He separates the light from the darkness, he separates the waters above from the waters below, he gathers the seas so dry ground can appear.
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And for three whole days, God establishes order, boundaries, and structure before filling those spaces with life.
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He prepares the rooms before he furnishes them.
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He makes the garden before he plants it.
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This is the first creative process we are ever shown.
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Form, then fill, structure, then abundance, room, then life.
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Many of us are trying to fill something God is still forming.
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And I know you know exactly what I mean.
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Here's a perfect example.
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You get the news from your spouse or the idea that you're going to add on another room to your home, perhaps clean out a storage space and turn it into a guest room.
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And before the building has happened, you've already ordered the furniture on Amazon, the throw rugs, the curtains, the decorations, and have your flower arrangement picked out before walls have even gone up.
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We are asking him for more ideas when there's nowhere in our lives for another idea to live.
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We have no open hours, no unclaimed mental space, no quiet, no boundaries, no place to write, no system for capturing what comes.
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We're carrying 10 different unfinished projects and asking God for number 11, because naturally number 11 feels much more exciting than finishing number six.
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We're not short on inspiration.
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We are short on room.
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And the modern creative has an additional problem.
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We now have tools that can fill every empty space instantly.
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The moment we feel uncertain, we can open our phones.
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We can scroll through other people's work.
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We can search for inspiration.
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We can ask AI to brainstorm a hundred different options.
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We can make another mood board.
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We can watch seven tutorials on YouTube.
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We can research until we forget our original question.
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And because all of that activity looks productive, we may not recognize that we are hiding inside of that.
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AI can be an extraordinary thinking partner.
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I use it every day, but it can also help you avoid making a decision for a very long time.
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It will cheerfully generate ideas until the cows come home.
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At some point, more options do not create clarity.
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They crowd it out.
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This is why listening is the first step in the maker's way.
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If we do not begin with listening, we can use our creativity, our ambition, and even our tools to fill every inch of the room before God has ever spoken.
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Now, making room is not about becoming a minimalist.
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Don't get me wrong.
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It is not a demand that you paint your whole house white or own only wooden spoons and fold your sweaters into perfect little rectangles.
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Making room means removing what is preventing you from being present to God and faithful to the work in front of you.
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Sometimes this is physical clutter.
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I know that one intimately.
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For decades, I struggled to let go of things.
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I had rooms I didn't want to open, closets full of beautiful things I could not bring myself to release, things with tags still attached, things I once believed I absolutely had to own.
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I know you feel me.
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I tried to declutter again and again, and it never lasted because I was treating it as a housekeeping problem.
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It's not a housekeeping problem.
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I was filling physical space because something inside me did not feel fulfilled.
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Then, during a season when God was teaching me how to loosen my grip, something changed.
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I began carrying boxes out of those rooms.
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I released things I had been attached to for years.
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And as the rooms became lighter, I became lighter.
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I wasn't merely learning to clean a closet.
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I was teaching my hands how to surrender.
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I was learning that letting go didn't leave me empty.
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It left me available.
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The physical room was only the visible edge of a deeper room God wanted to clear.
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The room inside me where I had stored all my old plans, old identities, old expectations, old wounds, old versions of success, and a picture of who I believed I had to become.
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That internal clutter was taking up far more space than anything in my closet.
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Your crowded room may not look like mine.
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Your house might be immaculate while your mind has 900 browser tabs open.
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Your calendar might be the cluttered room.
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Your commitments, your client list, your phone, your need to keep everybody happy, your fear of disappointing someone, your belief that being busy proves you're valuable, or your habit of giving every good idea immediate access to your time.
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Good things can still crowd out the necessary thing.
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Martha was not choosing between Jesus and sin.
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She was choosing between serving Jesus and sitting with Jesus.
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That is what makes discernment so difficult.
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Often we're not deciding between something good and something terrible.
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We're deciding between many good things and the one thing that belongs to this current season.
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So let's make this practical.
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I want you to walk through four rooms with me in your mind.
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The first is the room of your attention.
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What is occupying your thoughts before your feet even touch the floor in the morning?
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Are you beginning your day with God or with the entire internet?
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Whose voice is loudest in your creative life?
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Is it God's?
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Is it your customers?
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Your competitors, or your social media feed?
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Is it the imaginary critic who has not even seen the work yet?
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Your attention is creative real estate.
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Something is always building on it.
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Look honestly at what has moved in.
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The second room is your calendar.
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Your calendar will tell the truth about what your life currently has room for.
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Not what you hope to prioritize, not what you wrote on your vision board, what actually receives your hours.
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If you say the book matters, but it never appears on the calendar, the book does not yet have a room.
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If you say that rest matters, but every open space is immediately filled, rest doesn't have a room.
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If you say you want to listen to God, but you have not allowed five quiet minutes between waking up and consuming information, listening does not have a room.
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Now, this is not condemnation here.
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It's information.
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You cannot make an honest plan until you see the room exactly as it is.
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The third room is your physical environment.
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Where does your work live?
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Can you reach what you need?
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Can you begin without first moving 12 unrelated items and searching for a charger?
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Your creative space does not have to be large or Pinterest worthy.
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It can be one end of a table, a rolling cart, a notebook and a basket, but make it welcoming.
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Prepare a place where the work can arrive.
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God prepared the garden before he filled it with life.
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You can clear 12 inches of a desk.
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The fourth room is our commitments.
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This one might be the hardest.
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What have you continued doing simply because you have always done it?
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What drains your energy without producing any meaningful fruit?
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What product, service, responsibility, meeting, relationship, or expectation is consuming the nutrients needed by the work God has actually given you?
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Pruning something does not mean it was a mistake.
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It may have been right for an earlier season, but a commitment can be good and still be complete.
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You're allowed to say this served its purpose or this no longer belongs to me.
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I cannot carry this and remain faithful to what God is asking of me now, today.
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Creating room often requires a holy no.
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Not an angry no, not a dramatic no, accompanied by a three-paragraph social media announcement, just a clear, loving no that protects the necessary yes.
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Attention, calendar, environment, commitments.
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Those are your four rooms.
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Now, I want to make sure you hear what I'm not saying.
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You do not have to clear every room perfectly before God will meet you.
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Please don't turn making room into another performance.
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Do not create a 47-item decluttering checklist and decide you cannot listen to God until the garage has been aptly reorganized and every email has been answered.
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God met Martha in the middle of the unfinished work.
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Jesus didn't say, come sit with me once the dishes are done.
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He called her while the kitchen was still bustling.
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You are deeply loved in the clutter.
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You are accepted before the calendar changes.
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God is not waiting for a quieter, more organized, more disciplined version of you.
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He is already right there with you in the room.
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The invitation is simply to notice him.
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He wants your presence before your productivity.
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He tenderly calls Martha back because he loves her too much to let her believe that frantic service is the price of belonging.
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You do not have to exhaust yourself to prove you're devoted.
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You do not have to make yourself indispensable to be worthy of his love.
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And you do not have to keep producing so God will continue to choose you.
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You have already been chosen.
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You have already been welcomed.
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This is a place for you at his feet before you complete one more task.
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That is where real creativity begins, not in the pressure, in presence.
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So here is your maker's way practice for this episode.
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Choose one of your four rooms.
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Remember, they're attention, calendar, physical environment, or your commitments.
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Don't choose all four.
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And I want you to ask: what is filling this room right now?
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What is it costing me?
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What is one thing I can remove, release, or relocate?
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Then make one clearing.
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Delete the app from your home screen, cancel the meeting that no longer needs to exist, clear one small space, put one unfinished project into a labeled file, not now.
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Say no to one responsibility you accepted out of guilt.
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Give away one box of things you no longer need.
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Protect just one hour.
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And as you clear that small space, I want you to pray.
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God, I am not clearing this room so I can fill it with more of my own plans.
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I am making room for you.
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Show me what belongs here now.
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Then resist the urge to refill the space immediately.
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That may be the most difficult part.
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Leave a little white space in the day, sit at his feet, let the room remain open long enough to become a welcome.
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Because emptiness is not always evidence that something's missing.
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Sometimes emptiness is preparation.
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Sometimes the bare garden bed is exactly where it needs to be.
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Sometimes the open hour is holy.
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And sometimes the blank page isn't demanding that you perform, it's waiting to receive.
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My creative friend, you do not need another hundred ideas today.
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You need room for the right idea to take root.
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You do not need to become more impressive.
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You need to become more available.
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You do not need to stop being Martha forever.
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The world needs your capable hands.
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Your family needs dinner, the customers need their orders, the work still has to be done.
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But before you return to the many things, choose the one necessary thing.
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Sit, listen, receive, then get up and build from what you've heard.
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In our next episode, we're going to give that received idea a place to go.
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We'll talk about writing the vision, catching ideas before they disappear, and turning something enormous and overwhelming into a plan you can actually begin.
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Until then, I want you to stay close, stay curious, and stay in the making.
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But most of all, remember, God is not standing outside your cluttered life waiting for you to make it presentable.
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He's already there, saying your name with tenderness and inviting you to sit with him.
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You are deeply known, completely accepted, and very dearly loved.
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If you're ready to practice this rhythm instead of only hearing about it, I created The Maker's Way just for you.
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It's a free four-week journal that will help you listen, build, refine, and release, and recognize the season God is keeping you in.
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You can download it at themakersway.com and let's put the maker's way into practice together.