Stuff
We all accumulate it. Cindy and I are worse than most. We have interests, hobbies, and……worst of all…….collections. Stuff, in and of itself, is not bad. It can be useful, satisfying, even fun. I look through my piles of stuff and compare it to one of my best friends. He lives the “less is more” lifestyle. He is moving this week and can probably put all of his and his wife’s stuff in a small trailer. It would take me a moving van……..or two…….and a forklift. I once told my son, “you gave me a pretty hard time in your teens and twenties……..my revenge is that I will die……..and you will have to clean up this mess.” It was a joke…….but I noticed that he didn’t laugh.
Here’s the problem for me. I’m in my 70’s. Fairly soon, all of my stuff will belong to someone else. Even worse, most of it will belong to people I don’t even know and have never met. All of the stuff that I have spent a lifetime of work accumulating and caring for will no longer be connected……to me.
And then it occurred to me. In a deeper sense, my stuff never was truly connected to me. I have simply been a custodian…..no more…..no less. Much of it was here before I was born and will be here long after I am gone.
And so I am shifting gears. I no longer browse antique malls and tool shops looking for new and better stuff. I am even disposing of my collections. I will never get to the point of my friend……..but I will leave a smaller mess for my executor.
The lesson of the Bible……in regards to stuff…….is simple. Stuff is neither good nor bad. The secret to stuff is that we shouldn’t hold on to it too tightly. We should not let it define us. We should not allow it to dictate our value. Because our value is defined by something else.
Our value is defined exclusively by our relationship with our creator.
In a few short years, that will be the only metric that will count. So, if you are young…..if you are still in the “accumulation” phase of your life…….if you are still in the “empire building” phase…….my lesson is this:
Use your stuff, enjoy it…..but don’t hold on to it too tightly. Don’t make stuff the focus of your life, your efforts. And above all, don’t allow your stuff to define your value…..because you are worth far more than that.
Your relationship worth is far greater than your net worth.
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Jesus, Mathew 6:19-21
Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
Jesus,Matthew 6:25-26