Stuff.
Jesus told us not to store it up. You remember the verse, don’t you? “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19-20).
Well, I’ve known that verse for years but recently, I understood it.
For a couple of months I’ve been changing the way I eat and have increased the amount of exercise I was getting in an attempt to lose some weight. One of my incentives, along with just getting healthy, was to be able to get back in some clothes I had been unable to wear for a while. Thank the Lord, the plan has and continues to work.
As a result, when I stepped on the scales and realized I had lost some weight, I would step over to my closet and pull out a suit or slacks or a shirt that I’ve been unable to fit into and try them on to see if I had finally lost enough weight to wear them. Holli referred to it as a “feeding frenzy.” You know, like sharks attacking something.
Well, early in this process, I had a suit I had been unable to wear for a while that I could finally fit into. I put it on, stood in front of the mirror, asked Holli how it looked, and always felt good when she would say “I believe you can wear that.”
I was pumped. I had a new suit without even buying one!
I wore it to church one Sunday. Man, I felt good. Wearing new suits does that to preachers. Ha!
My joy was short-lived however because that night, I discovered a huge hole the size of the grand canyon in my slacks. “This couldn’t be”, I thought. I’ve just been able to wear these again. “This isn’t fair” I thought. “I’ve lost this weight and one of my rewards was to be able to wear some clothes I had out-grown and now, that’s gone.”
Almost immediately, the scripture I quoted at the beginning of this article came to my mind. “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.”
“Yeah”, I thought… “that applies to clothes.”
So, I threw the suit away (the hole was too big to be patched) and determined that even though part of my joy in losing weight was to be able to wear some suits I hadn’t been able to wear previously, I was not going to let one suit ripping steal my joy.
But I was reminded again of the folly of deriving joy/self esteem etc… from storing up “stuff.”
“Stuff” (clothes) rips.
“Stuff” (clothes) gets stained.
“Stuff” (jewelry/furniture) gets stolen.
“Stuff” (electronics/clothes) gets out of date.
“Stuff” (automobiles) gets wrecked
So, if your joy is in “stuff” you are going to have some disappointing days.
However, if your joy is in the Lord, He sustains you even in the days when you find a rip in your pants!