A Jubilee

I decided a few days ago to have my own version of a Sabbath Rest. Every seven years, the Hebrews were to allow the land to rest. On the fiftieth year, the Jubilee, slaves were freed and all debts canceled.

I could use a rest and the freedom that goes with it! I have such a backlog of paperwork and other things to do that it is impossible to catch up, so I am starting over.

I spent a good part of 2007 tossing things out from various closets and am now mostly left with unfinished paperwork. And yet, I felt chained when I looked at all the things that were left undone.

Now that I have a Jubilee mindset, each day for the last few days, I have gone into various areas of the house where paper is stashed and cleaned them out to what is only a few weeks old. I am giving myself the freedom to have a fresh, new start for 2008.

My goal will be to have the stray piles of stuff gone by the end of the year, as well as some new good habits to keep things under control so I am managing myself well. I am expecting to be freed from pressing and nagging to do’s. I am hoping to have more time for what I really want to be doing. I may even think about doing this again in seven years.

Too Busy With Things

“We have too much stuff!” I fumed as I stumbled past a pile of stuff in the garage.

This wasn’t the first time I had hit my limit on the things we had accumulated. I had been trying to “purge” the house for several years now. I felt like Eustace in C. S. Lewis’ The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Eustace was unsuccessful in removing his dragon skin. Only Aslan could do it. For Eustace, the skin symbolized his sin that only Christ could remove. For me, the clinging dragon skin represents all the trivial possessions and projects that consume my time and energy. I have been pruning things out of my life and home with a goal to simplify my life, but it is now time to let Jesus dig deeper than I had been able to do on my own.

It was a revelation to me to learn recently that my struggles to downsize my possessions affect my availability to share Christ. The top four hindrances, in order, that keep Christian workers from sharing their faith are exactly in reverse order from Christians in general (The Top Four – Part One). They are:

1. Busyness
2. Not knowing nonbelievers
3. Lack of know-how
4. Fear

Busyness is definitely an issue for me. I am often too busy with possessions and projects to give people a little droplet of my time that can mean an ocean of eternity for them! I remember experiencing real freedom in this area during Hurricane Frances in 2004. We had evacuated to my son’s apartment, taking only the bare essentials with us. I finally had time that weekend! Without all the things to distract me, I had lots of time available for my family. Unfortunately, we returned home to an unwanted skylight and a puddle of brown water, with blobs of soggy pink insulation in the kitchen, so we were more-than-our-usual busy for a long time after that.

In the parable of the sower, Jesus explains that the seed sown among thorns symbolized “the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things.” What was the result of sowing seed among thorns? The thorns choked the plant, “making it unfruitful.”

Some very good questions to ponder from this parable are:
• Am I caught up in the concerns of this life? And in desires for more things?
• Am I deceived by what I own? Is something taking the place of God in my life?
• Am I unfruitful because of what I own? Or because of how much I own?
• Am I willing to let Jesus help me “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles” so I can more easily run the race God has given me? (See Hebrews 12: 1 – 3)

As Eustace explained after his experience with Aslan: “Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt . . .”

I want to be free to serve, not entangled by so many things. To go deeper may be painful in some respects, but I am ready. It’s not worth holding on to things if they are hindering me in my availability and usefulness.

P. S. If you would like encouragement in sharing your faith, you might be interested in my blog on Way-of-Life witnessing, The Sower.

An Eternal Investment

A young man waited at our door with a container of items at his feet. We have made it a policy not to support things we don’t know about, so I said “no” and then gave him a tract.

I really wasn’t surprised later that day to see the tract tossed aside on my neighbor’s sidewalk. I did not “invest” in this young salesman to “gain a hearing” for the Gospel. Just spending time talking to him would have shown I really was interested in him. Would spending a few minutes or a few dollars have brought an eternal return?

Fast forward several years to last month when I was given a bag of more groceries than I could use. I knew what to do and gave most of them to my neighbor across the street.

“I’ll make soup!” Cathy beamed as she examined the large bag. “My boys will love snacking on the carrots, too.”

A few weeks later, as I was spring cleaning, I brought her a box overflowing with toys that my boys had enjoyed when they were younger. Cathy’s boys, on tiptoe, tried to peer into the box as I handed it over to her.

Last week, a friend and I sat around Cathy’s dining room table to take a worldview survey with her. Suddenly tears filled Cathy’s eyes.

“Last night was very hard,” she explained.

We listened and we prayed and we hugged her. Then, we shared how she could know God personally. Cathy prayed to receive Christ with us! Her tear-stained face was radiant when we left her.

The groceries would have spoiled in my fridge. The toys would have put a few dollars in my wallet or rusted in the garage. How much better to use what Jesus gives to me as a tool to unlock a heart for God!

SIDE NOTE: Many years ago I gave up on the small return of yard sales and switched to the eternal investment of blessing someone. I could write volumes on what I’ve learned about giving things away.

True Riches

I was reading in Light of Eternity by Randy Alcorn. He was discussing the parable of the unjust steward in Luke 16: 1 – 13. I was particularly impressed by his thought of “true riches.”

God reminds us repeatedly in His Word that He owns everything and we are stewards of what He gives us. It can be challenging to live that way and keep that mindset.

In this life, God desires for us to be faithful stewards of our lives: the time, the talents, treasures, opportunities,… that He has given us. If we are faithful with what is His, then He promises us “true riches” in eternity.

One meaning of true riches is that only in Heaven do I have ownership. For the first time, God will give me what I can call “my own.”

Also, true riches are only possible in Heaven where no one can be impoverished by my gain. No one is needy in eternity.

This also raises the thought for me this morning. Is someone missing out because I will not loosen my grip on something that isn’t really mine in the first place?