I have a suggestion to all the youths out there, meaning anyone twenty years of age or younger, that you should have at least as many older friends as you have those your age. Why? Because no matter how well equiped you are for life there is always something ahead of you that you don't expect to occur, and to have someone who you can refer to in these situations is worth pure gold. It may sound or look like you are sucking up, but aquiring older friends is the best thing any young person can get ahead in this messed up world.

This evening while I was at work I spoke with the store manager as we were closing things down. While talking we got on the subject of 'things', those everyday items that we have, but never use or even plan on using. About six years ago she met her husband online; she was in Queens, New York and he was in Crawfordsville, Indiana. As they spoke across the internet they both agreed that to be happy they needed to get rid of all the things they didn't need and simplify their lifestyles. When she finally flew down to meet him here all that she packed was one suitcase with her clothing and two small boxes of the things she needed. "You are completely insane!", some people told her, and she even thought so herself, but as she told me, "I was the most cleansing experience I had ever had. It took weight off my shoulders".

Just the other day my father called me and told me that he had lost his job and that he wasn't sure how long they would be able to keep the house, so I needed to go through my things and take or sell what I had. When I moved out of the house it was a little bit of a last minute decision on my part. At the time I had just told them both that I had a girlfriend of another faith (which wasn't allowed for my own faith) and that I would be moving out. Much to my disappointment they asked that I stay for a week to see how things would go, and I accepted. The last day of that week I thought I might be able to stay since I had survived so far, but my decision changed when I had a heated argument with my mother. Before going to work I took 15 minutes, gathered what I thought I would need, and exited the house. Later on I took some time to pick a few more things up, but on the whole, I never missed anything I had back home...never really needed any of it. So, when I came back the other day, I knew going through everything wouldn't be a very fun task.

This was until I let go of sentiment and value and saw everything for what it was...just things. Within an hour I had put some cloths I had been looking for in a bag and told them to sell the rest and keep the money. To be able to turn and walk away from all that I had was a great burden off my shoulders and now I come home to where I am now and I again am throwing out things I don't need. Give to the poor! What means little to you means a great deal to many homeless people in every city we are apart of. Don't worry about he value of anything, If a theif were to come and steal it all you would be no better off. Everything that is tangible is something you can do without in this world.

"Everything that I wanted of her life was in my heart with love and in my mind with memories", Diane my boss said after telling me this next story. Her mother had died back in 1998 and her father ten years prior to that. When the funeral was over and all came down to business she went to her mothers house, an apartment that was more like a home with very nice furniture and a lifes worth of valueables, where she began sorting through everything seeing what things she wanted to keep from her mothers place. Of all that she could have added to her own belongings she took one thing, a jar. This wasn't a valuable jar she told me nor was it spectacular looking, rather it held a memory to it. everyday when her father would come home from work he would drop his keys in a jar sitting on a table beside the front door. "Even to this day I can hear those keys dropping in the jar in my mind, and sometimes when I am feeling down or stressed I will walk over to the jar and drop my keys in to remind me of the joy I got from knowing my father was home".

Everything beside the jar was sold by a man she found in the yellow pages. "He came and gave me a quote on everything in the house, and I said Okay, get rid of it all", she told me. How great it feels to have little to our name. Happiness comes from within us, and as any rich person will tell you, no happiness can come from money or belongings. "Do not store up treasures on earth where rust and moth consume, rather store up for yourselves treasures in heaven" This wonderful scripture really tells all when it comes to having things. It is the good we do for God and others that brings rich rewards. And think of it this way, if we have little, only little can be stolen from us. For those of us off at college or very close to being off, we have a grant opportunity to rid ourselves of all the things that weigh us down. If we can life in a small dorm room with few peices of clothing and necesities, we can surely do the same after we get our own place. Of course we don't want to be living on milk crates the rest of our lives, but by keeping what we think we need to a minimum and ridding ourselves of what becomes burdensome to us, we can succesfully find a portion of the happiness Christ said we would receive when he told us, "If anyone wants to come after me, let him disown himself and pick up his torture stake and continually follow me. For whoever wants to save his soul will lose it; but whoever loses his soul for my sake will find it. For what benefit will it be to a man if he gains the whole world but forfeits his soul? or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? - Matthew 16:24-26

In that scripture Christ gave us three things to do in order to follow him completely. I will address theses three things and there significance in a later article, but for now let us use that basic message of storeing up our treasures in heaven, not earth.

Posted in: on Thursday, July 20, 2006 at at 11:11 PM