Lost Things

I've been losing things a lot lately. A flash drive. My phone going dead on me for a solid week. One of my friends. An earring here, another earring there. A bunch of files from an old computer. A story I wanted to read. I'm normally such an organized person, losing anything used to drive me insane until I found that object again. I would literally stomp around my room (or wherever I happened to be), getting irritated at everyone around me and even crying if I couldn't find the object I was missing. "It's gone forever!" I'd bewail, allowing my human sinful nature to get a hold of me as I lashed out at innocent bystanders.

I think God knows when it's time to give his children a lesson. He chose to target the very things I hold precious---like my pair of favorite feather earrings, and the zipper on my favorite leather jacket not working so I couldn't use it. The more things I unintentionally the lost, the more I began to find it somewhat odd, even humorous, that God kept tossing those things off my materialistic radar and making me more patient. Now, when I lose something, like yesterday when I lost (yet another) earring, I looked around for it for a few minutes and then just shrugged it off. God really knows me well; he was disciplining me even in small things.

The verse that popped into my head when I was thinking over this post was Luke 12, Christ's parable of the rich fool:
    "The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain.And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’“This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God" (v. 13-21).

In our lives, we may not intentionally think this selfishly---we are generous people, prone to give rather than get, tithe rather than take---but we build our own barns by focusing on the gadgets, gizmos, clothing, and objects that are only temporary comforts here on earth. When we think of the larger picture, if we lose something, we know longer think of it as so severe: it is our training for looking first to the Giver before going wild at the loss of the gift. Many people and things will pass through our lives, but we shouldn't mourn over their monetary value. We should thank God for having them, and then express in our lives a better thought process of patience when we do have to let them go.

My favorite part of Luke 12 is the preceding verse to the parable. A quibbling sibling tells Jesus that his brother won't divide an inheritance with him, and Jesus calmly replies, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions" (v.15). Even if it is not something as great as an inheritance, we are not meant to focus on the abundance or quality of our possessions, but the richness and life of glorifying God (v. 21). What is our mindset with our material blessings? Where do we find our worth and our treasure store? 

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matt. 6: 19-21).