I wish this were original, but it isn’t. When in church last Sunday, I was blessed to hear the pastor try to address the fears many of us might have going through these tough times with the economy and the uncertainty that permeates the world today. Famine, fire, terrorists, recession, the mortgage crisis, and the like are just a few worldly issues that might keep you up at night. I was moved by his analogy regarding how we go through life and how we all ultimately go out. The pastor spoke of a man he knew who had acquired a great deal of stuff in his lifetime, only to get rid of some of it as age forced him to move into an Assisted Care Living Center for the elderly. The man was moved from that place to a nursing home and then, finally, to a hospice care center. Each time, the man had to get rid of more and more stuff. His children, early on, sometimes had garage sales. They, of course, kept something, and more often than not, as the man grew sicker and time went by, his children threw more and more of this man’s stuff away. Well, one day the pastor visited him in the hospice center, only to see the total of the man’s possessions neatly kept in a garbage bag to leave with the man, as the pastor personally remembered how much stuff the man had accumulated at one time. And you know what? When the man died, he didn’t even get to take his garbage bag full of stuff with him. The pastor’s point was that we spend a lot of time trying to accumulate things and then more time worrying about losing them; in fact, we worship a God who does not give us this worry or accepts this fear. There is joy in knowing, or at least there should be, that the God we serve indeed supplies our needs.
Now, this doesn’t mean that our day-to-day struggles aren’t real. They are. But how we deal with them was the point of the sermon. I have come to believe 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. God shows up in our times of weakness. If we recognize and understand that our stuff is not all that important, God shows up with ample supply; our manna for the day, if you will. If you’re honest with yourself, He has until this point in your life. The angst of today’s problems should be replaced with peace of mind, and when the world is out of control, you should demonstrate your faith. In the world? Or, in God? That question is only necessary if you are unsure of the answer. Worry comes with the world. And the world, because of sin, is chaotic. Peace of mind comes via the Lord because the Lord is anything but chaotic.“Examine yourselves to see whether you are in faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ is in you, unless you fail the test? And I trust you will discover that we have not failed the test.” 2 Corinthians 13:5-6. Now that Christ is in you, let’s take another look at the chaos on Wall Street. The stuff in your garbage bag is going to be left behind anyway. When you arrive in heaven, you will not have any luggage.
May God bless and keep you always.