So today I went garage saleing 'cause I had to pick up a suit for a wedding. Yes, I bought a nice Burely for Elaine and I so we can take out kids with us so we can go biking. But what I wanted to comment on is how much stuff we have - how much stuff I have. As I walk through these garage sales (mostly filled with a bunch of useless junk), I can't help but think about all the money spent on them years ago and how little enjoyment was likely received from them (most people keep the stuff with sentimental value. Or, if they've used it enough, it is not worth being sold). And people have enough stuff to fill a garage, with tons more stuff still in their houses. It's incredible. And then I go by all the storage units filled with stuff we can't store in our homes, and it's almost more than I can believe.

So I'm thinking about the verse where Christ says "where your treasure is, there your heart is also' (Matt 16). How can we have this much stuff and our heart not be there also? I look around at my room and my house, and realize how much I've accumulated in just a few short years, and I wonder how attached am I to all of this, really? If I say I'm not attached to it, why don't I get rid of it already? I've seen in my own life, my kids life, and other children's lives how the more stuff they have, the less they value what they do have (that old law of diminishing returns), So why do we keep getting more stuff? My guess is that it's twofold: we are inherently comparative people, and we want to fit into our culture. The second is that we still believe the lie that having more things really will make us happy.

I've never been poor, so I don't know what it's like to have nothing. But I know what its like to have less than what I do have, and I'm no happier now than I was back then. Well, yes, I am happier now, but it's not because of the things I have. It's because of my family and what I've learned in my relationship with Christ.

Which gets back to what I was going to get to in the first place. If we are not attached to all this stuff, and we know what Christ says about it (that it tends to take our heart away from him), and we know that he says we can use it for heavenly good, then why not get rid of it now? It may be taken from me at any moment (robbery, fire, bad economy, death, etc), and then I won't get a reward for giving it away.

I really don't know what to do with these thoughts. I've thought about them for years, read tons about it, preached on it and talked to others about it. In some ways I think I'm closer to understanding it, and in other ways I think I'm farther away.

I do praise God that he is teaching me, and that he is opening my eyes to what the world is like and my own heart is like. In some sense I feel like Socrates - I think it was he that said he was indeed the wisest man on earth because he alone knew how little he actually knew (Tom's paraphrase there). God grant that I know more of my sinful heart and reveal to me where my love of material things have overshadowed my First Love.