Each of us is the owner of a seemingly random collection of theologies, doctrines, and superstitions—a junk drawer of religious ideas and influences.

• It’s the witticisms your grandmother tossed around with ease that sounded like they came from a religious text.
• It’s an insight about God from a half-heard sermon at a friend’s church.
• It’s the mental screenshot of a meme shared on social media.
• It’s the empowering idea you underlined in a book and wrote on a Post-it Note now forever affixed to your laptop.

These are the things stuffed in our spiritual junk drawers. And as with that stash of old clothes in the closet or that stew of phone chargers, pens, and half-used batteries sitting in your kitchen drawer, something in us says, “This might be useful.” And so we hold on.
But should we? For many, this junk drawer spirituality has become burdensome. We are worn down by the religious experience it creates and frustrated by a collection of traditions, “truths,” and unfulfilled promises that continue to grow. In Junk Drawer Jesus, the spiritually exhausted are invited to examine our religious clutter and compare it to the person and the promises of Jesus Christ.
We’ll discover what—if anything—of our spiritual collection should be kept. In the process, we rediscover the soul-satisfying simplicity of a God who refuses to fill our lives with junk but instead offers grace upon grace.