“Once the investment of a rich man yielded a great profit. Considering his increased riches, the man said to himself, ‘What shall I do with my profits?’ And he came to this decision: ‘I will pull down my old houses, and build ones that are greater. I have amassed immense treasure, and will rejoice in my wealth. I will be content for many years to come, and will spend my time eating, drinking, and being merry.’

But God said to him: ‘Reckless man! Do you not know that this same night your soul will be demanded of you! When you are gone, whose will all these things be?’

Such is the fate of those who store up treasure for themselves, and are not rich in the possessions of God.” –Jesus

My favorite episodes of American Pickers are when Frank & Mike go cold calling and stumble across any guy with mind boggling mountains of hoarded “treasures” who just can’t find it in himself to part with some or other rusted relic. Contrary to popular sentiment not everyone has their price, not everyone is rational…

Wisdom, we are told, cries in the streets shouting to any who will listen:

“America, your possessions possess you!”

God asks: “When My fires burn, My winds blow, My rains flood, My earth quakes; when all you have prized and identified with is reduced to rubble will you then begin to realize true freedom?”

Will we finally admit that Things fill our hearts, block up the windows of our soul, barricade our doors so that the very God our forefathers trusted in can not enter? Instead of a soul free, empty for His filling, swept and adorned with the rudiments of grace, we are crowded with the “meanest idols among which we creep upon our knees wasting on them tender gazes that ought to belong only to our fellows and our Lord!”

If it be Things that slay us, Things that be our final undoing, does it matter whether it is Things we have or Things we don’t have? The rich, not trusting in God, the source of all riches, can ill endure the thought of exchanging their volatile currency for the unmerited privilege of Heaven’s nobility. The poor, forgetting who is Lord of the harvests of the earth, filled with fear for the next day’s supply, draw little from the well of faith. The rich do not trust in God as having given; the poor do not trust in God as ready to give!

We are all alike when, in time of trouble, WE DO NOT TRUST HIM! Distrust is atheism, and the barrier to all growth!

“It is hard on God, when His children will not let him give; when they carry themselves so that he must withhold His hand, lest he harm them. To take no care that they acknowledge whence their help comes, would be to leave them worshippers of idols, trusters in that which is not.”

Lord Jesus, we do not understand thee, because we do not trust thy Father – whole-hearted to us, as never yet was mother to her first-born! Full of care, as if he had none, we think this and that escapes his notice, for this and that he does not think! While we who are evil would die to give our children bread to eat, we are not certain the only Good will give us anything of what we desire!

The things of thy world so crowd our hearts, that there is no room in them for the things of thy heart, which would raise ours above all fear, and make us merry children in our Father’s house!

Surely many a whisper of the watching Spirit we let slip through brooding over a need not yet come to us! To-morrow makes to-day’s whole head sick, its whole heart faint. When we should be still, sleeping or dreaming, we are fretting about an hour that lies a half sun’s-journey away! Not so doest thou, Lord! thou doest the work of thy Father!

Wert thou such as we, then should we have good cause to be troubled! But thou knowest it is difficult, things pressing upon every sense, to believe that the informing power of them is in the unseen; that out of it they come; that, where we can discern no hand directing, a will, nearer than any hand, is moving them from within, causing them to fulfil his word! Help us to obey, to resist, to trust.“

(adapted from George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons II, The Cause of Spiritual Stupidity. The sayings of Jesus taken from Lee Cantelon’s The Words; www.thewords.com)