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My Stuff


I don't think we realize that the stuff we think we own isn't really ours.  From the time of being born into this world and cosmos, all that we have has been given to us.  We didn't even arrive  with the ability to provide ourselves with food or clothing.  We were dependent from the start. All  has been given, even our ability to take that very first breath of life outside of the comfort of our mother's womb.  All is really God's stuff.


Watching my winter garden thrive, as broccoli and brussel sprouts are developing, I am mindful that although I have been the one to water the garden, to shoo away pesty insects, the actual growth and ultimate vegetable to eat is beyond me.  It's a transformation process I see outwardly, but a mystery as to how each day it is changed.  I see that this early morning, as the eastern sky has painted a magnificent spray of color before me.  Each day, each morning there has never been a sunrise like that one before.  Amazing to think that the Creator has such an imagination to come up with a brand new painting these thousands, maybe millions of years!


God's stuff, all of this earth is His stuff, essentially on loan for us to care and to be good caretakers of His things.  But just like the Israelites of years past, we are not very good or consistent at caring for His things.  Israel was the chosen nation of God to actually bless the entire world and its people.  But selfishness, greed, slothfulness, and disregard frequently surfaced in their relationship to the earth and to God.  They had to be reminded, often it seems, that their worship was disrespecting God and what was rightfully His.  He reminded them that it was He who chose them to be a special people, it was  ". . . My priests to go up to My altar . . . why do you kick at My sacrifice and My offering which I have commanded in My dwelling, and honor your sons above Me, by making yourselves fat with the choicest of every offering of My people Israel?" (I Samuel 2:28-29).


Here we are today, no different from thousands of years and generations before us.  We  live on a planet that has been ravaged and raped for its resources, only to make us fat in our bodies and pockets.  And it has often been done at the expense of oppressing or exterminating others different from us.  John Woolman writes of this in his journal, as he knew from the very start of our nation, the wrong that was inflicted on God's country, "I . . . was covered with sorrow and heaviness on account of the spreading, prevailing spirit of this world, introducing customs grievous and oppressive on one hand, and cherishing pride and wantonness on the other." (The Journal of John Woolman, p. 150). But yet, God keeps giving us another opportunity to make a change, He continues to give His mercy and grace for us to live another day.  He desires that we return to Him, remove from us the false gods of self, redirect our focus on Him who alone is the rightful owner of all that we are and have, and follow in His steps.  

Just follow, walk this way, place my feet in His steps, the Jesus way. And above all, remember all of what lies before me today and tomorrow is His.  I take joy and comfort in knowing that, and in the meantime, receiving what He has given me with gratitude.




 

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