The Things We Can't Take With Us

The other day, while standing in a long line, I watched a little girl in front of me transform from a sweet and joyful daughter to a product of our ugly materialistic society. One moment she was talking and giggling with her mom, and the next she was threatening to bite, scream, and kick if she did not get the toy she wanted. The event concluded with a "compromise"...the mother bought the toy, but the daughter would get it in her stocking on Christmas.

This situation is in no way uncommon. Especially during this season of more, more, more. But somehow it still deeply saddens me.

I feel sad for these children who are being deceived into believing that these earthly and temporary things will somehow make them happy or keep them happy.

For Christ to leave his heavenly throne and be born into this dirty ugly world, it took heapings of humility, to say the least. And he did not come rich or attractive or with status. He came humbly, in every sense of the word.

Yet somehow we have made this holiday about status, money, and us. We can be truly arrogant, ignorant, ugly beings.

Yet He came to save us.

One of my favorite scriptures is Matthew 6:19-21:

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal...

So, this Christmas season, let us focus less on those things we can't take with us, the temporary happy. Let us instead find our treasure in the only One who can bring true and everlasting joy.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."