Hoard | Wayfarer

Make room for us in your hearts.
2 Corinthians 7:2 (NIV)

Wendy and I have been on a slow process this year of purging things from our possession. We’ve taken loads to the local thrift store for donation, sold things on Facebook, pitched things, and given things away. In some ways I don’t feel like we’ve made much of a dent. There seems always to be more stuff than room.

I was struck this morning by Paul’s appeal to the Jesus followers in Corinth to “make room for us in your hearts.” The word picture indicates that there is finite room in the heart just as there is finite room in a house. There is only so much room.

So how much stuff have I crammed in my heart?

What exactly have I crammed in there?

Is it bringing me an increase of Life, or is it just taking up space?

Are there things that should be in my heart but for the lack of room?

Paul’s word picture also assumes that we can make room in our hearts just as we make room in our house. Things can be purged, released, tossed away, and given away.

What have I crammed in my heart that is dead, lifeless, and taking up space?

I’m once again reminded of my word for 2017: empty. As I have meditated on empty I have come to realize that its significance for me is not as an adjective but as a verb. There are things in my life to be emptied. I’m prayerfully pondering this morning how my own heart might be one of them.

Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord Almighty: The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon.Nothing will be left, says the Lord.
Isaiah 39:5-6 (NIV)

Over the past handful of years, I’ve twice had the experience of being robbed. Thieves broke into our house at the lake and took a lot of things with them. Then my hotel room was robbed while on a business trip and the thieves got away with a lot of my electronic gear.

I learned in being robbed that some things are easily replaced. Televisions, computers, and electronic gear can be quickly acquired, set up and functioning as normal. The things that I still think about are personal items with sentimental value; The things that can’t be quantified for your insurance company.

As I read in today’s chapter about Hezekiah showing the Babylonian envoys all the treasures of his kingdom, I just knew in my gut that this was not going to end well. Perhaps being victimized has made me a tad more cynical, but I didn’t need Isaiah’s prophetic word to know the dudes were essentially casing the joint.

I’m reminded this morning of Jesus words:

“Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.”

This morning I’m thinking about the difference between possessions and treasures. The further I get in my journey the greater desire I feel to rid myself of the former and be more discerning in my definition of the latter. I’m thinking it might be time for me to case my own joint, with an eye towards emptying what is unnecessary, unimportant, and not useful. One of the quotes that has stuck with me through adulthood comes from the artist and designer William Morris: “Do not have anything in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”