What if…

I’ve gotten into several conversations lately which seem to revolve around one particular thing… stuff.

Protecting stuff. Acquiring stuff. Holding onto stuff. Keeping others from your stuff. Fear of losing stuff. Fear of others stuff. Fear of what other’s stuff can do to us…

But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking too. About Jesus. And what he says about protecting and acquiring and holding and keeping and fearing… our stuff.

I can’t help but think that Jesus wouldn’t be very thrilled with us right about now. He isn’t thrilled with us. Because we don’t seem to get it. He used to say, that the Son of man had no place to rest his head.

What if, instead of thinking “I’ve got to use my hard earned money to help someone else?” We thought, “Wow, I’m blessed. I have enough to be able to take care of all my needs plus help someone else.” What if, instead of living out of fear thinking, “They are going to blow us up, take our jobs, hurt us in some way…” We thought “We are a land where there is plenty. Welcome. Work hard and you can achieve anything.”

Do I understand that there are people out there that want to hurt us? Yes, I do. And I still want to do what is right by those people too. The only way to end hate, is to love. And if they hate right up to the end, and hurt us in some way… at least I know I did the right thing. They didn’t take me to their level. 

Do you remember the cartoon with Daffy Duck when he finds a treasure that will allow him to be financially free the rest of his life? But in the end he is turned into a tiny version of himself, having lost it all… yet there he is, running after the one material possession in his sight, a giant black pearl, and as the clam shell is closing in on him he is still trying to claim that pearl as his own. “It’s mine, it’s mine, it’s mine” he’s screaming til the end.

Isn’t that us? We all think (of the possessions we have acquired) their mine, mine, mine… and okay, I get it, you worked for them. But are they really yours? Animals seem to understand better than humans that none of it is “ours” to claim. Think of the last time your dog understood the man made boundaries of yards…?

We need to realize it is all a gift…that we’re allowed to manage for a time and we need to share it, all of it. And the harder you cling to your possessions, the more you are ruled by them… just a thought.