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."

Cleaning Out Closets

My junior year of college I read through Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster for the first time. It was also the first time that I really understood what simplicity means. I discovered it is not only a freeing way to live, but also an important discipline in living by faith.

The Christian discipline of simplicity is an inward reality that results in an outward life-style. ~Foster

Simplicity is simply laying down our desires to compete for status, position, and extravagance. It is putting aside those cravings we have to impress people with our things. It is dying to our lust for little gods, and making room for more of God in our lives.

Simplicity is an outward life-style of owning what we need, and not having to have bigger, better, or more than our neighbors. It is a discipline God offers us to protect us from love of money. It is not legalistic, but personal.

Simplicity is the key to unlocking the chains of bondage to a materialistic world. It frees our time to spend more with God and our families. It frees our resources to give more to those in need.

Simplicity sets us free to recieve the provision of God as a gift that is not ours to keep and can be freely shared with others. ~Foster

Lately God has been opening my eyes in a fresh way to these verses:

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.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  Matthew 6:19-21

Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches,

but give me only my daily bread. Proverbs 30:8

The Bible is flooded with verses like these, yet we so easily forget God's eternal goodness, and put our desire and faith into the temporary.

Although I value simplicity, recently I have realized that my simplicity has turned to something ugly. It has changed from being between me and God, to being a comparison to how much others have. Somewhere along the way my thought became that as long as I have considerably less than those around me, I am living in simplicity. Although this is "bigger and better" in reverse, it cheapens this gift of discipline.

So today I took some time to examine my life and my belongings. I live with a family, in their spare room. I use their furniture, so all my belongings are essentially contained in one closest. Yet today when I took an honest look at what I really need, I was able to give all this away.

I won't tell you an exact number of how many shirts or pants I or anyone "needs" in order to live simply; that should be a personal examination of needs and wants between you and God. I will tell you that I was holding on to many things that have been cluttering my life. And I will say it again...

Simplicity is freeing.

So now I ask, are there inward or outward things you are holding onto that are really holding onto you? Ask God to show you how you can live more simply, free of this bondage.