Coats in the shopping carts

I find the story below from Os Hillman quite interesting, especially the "aha" moment of realization.

A former client of mine was the marketing director of a large food brokerage company and told me a story about one of their client grocery stores located in the upper Midwest. It seems that the store could not understand why at a certain time every winter sales plummeted. They studied their product line and interviewed customers. They did everything possible to uncover the mystery. Finally, someone made a remarkable discovery that changed everything.

 

It seemed that whenever it was really cold outside, the manager raised the temperature in the store. When customers came into the store it was too warm for them, so they removed their coats and placed them in their shopping carts. This meant less room for food and resulted in reduced sales overall. They lowered the temperature of the store, and as a result, the sales climbed back to the levels they were accustomed to. Their adjustment resulted in restoring sales levels.

It seems to me that when things are comfortable around us, we tend to overlook the simple things that can become a snare in our spiritual life if we are not careful. In the desire to accumulate more, we are often not aware that these things begin to take the place of what's important in our spiritual life. Sometimes it can be the cares of the world, desire to hoard more than what we need, or simply crowding out of our lives the daily devotional time with Jesus that is necessary to help us centre on Him as the Author and Perfecter of our faith.

What are the adjustments that we need to do in our lives? What are the coats in our shopping cart that needs to be removed so that we can put into it what is of ultimate importance.

Ephesians 4:22-24

22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.