I own nothing. Not the car I drive, not the clothes I wear, not my Calvin and Hobbes books or my Saved By the Bell DVDs. 🙂 None of it belongs to me. The money in my checking account isn’t mine; the computer I am typing this on has another Owner. Since none of it is mine, when the Lord calls me to give it away a piece of my heart isn’t a part of the transaction. My longing should be for continued intimacy with Love Divine and to live a life consumed by passion to bring His Kingdom to the world.
This has been a difficult lesson for me to learn, especially because of the material-consumption culture I live in. I used to be a “collector.” As a child, it was teddy bears. Then I grew a love for baseball which also created a love of owning baseball memorabilia. The late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s introduced me to music, thus creating my cassette tape collection (hello, Lionel Richie, Debbie Gibson, Tiffany and New Kids on the Block 🙂 ). Once I started earning more of an income, I turned to movies, first in the form of VHS tapes and then DVDs. I took pride in having a huge DVD collection and felt such satisfaction and almost a sense of worth by what I owned. I’ve done the math and the amount of money I spent on DVDs could have sponsored a child through Compassion for over 17 years. 17 years. Wow.
I’ve realized this is a two-fold blog. I have thoughts that are connected and separate all at the same time. First, I believe we are called into a life where our hearts yearn for nothing but more of the Savior and to serve Him with our every breath. This process of going deeper and deeper with Infinite Grace begins to eliminate the desire for earthly “stuff,” not just in a material sense but also in every way possible where anything not of Him leaves us feeling empty and incomplete. We are also freed of the idea that what we have is ours, when in actuality everything belongs to Christ.
Secondly, it is so easy to allow our identities to be wrapped up in what we have, who we know, our activities, our families, our jobs, our abilities. This not only places a veil of bondage around our hearts, it can slowly blind us to the needs of the world and meeting our individual desires becomes greater than serving others with reckless abandon. We lose sight of the fact that we are children of the Most High. The I Am defines who I am. My everything for The Everything.
Because we belong to Love, nothing of this world can meet our needs; it can’t fill us to satisfaction. At the same time, we are blessed to then bless others. This goes so far beyond materially-speaking. We are called to give because it’s not ours to hold on to anyway. We can give time, wealth, encouragement, hugs, smiles, love; the list goes on. Our vision of ourselves and why we breathe changes the more we keep our focus on the cross. “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.” John 15:19.
