Good morning everyone and happy Saturday.
A remember a few years back, I looked out the window and noticed one of those Got Junk trucks pulling into the parking lot at our apartment complex. For whatever reason, it caught my attention and I thought it was a bit odd since our complex was only two years old at the time. As I watched, the truck pulled up to the building adjacent to ours. Then, another truck pulled in. A little while later, a third Junk truck pulled up. After some apparent confusion as to which end of the building they were supposed to be at, they finally got all of the trucks parked in the right place. Then, after a few minutes, they began carrying out the so-called junk to the awaiting trucks. One of the benefits of being on the fourth floor is that you have a great view into the back of the Junk trucks. (yes, I know, I should get a real hobby). Sadly, everything that was being hauled out looked like it was in great condition and probably two years old or less. The whole scene seemed kind of odd. It leaves you wondering what happened. How did all of this once valuable stuff get deemed junk and end up being tossed in the back of a truck? Of course, it could have been something tragic like a death, or a bad break up, or a bankruptcy. Not really sure what happened. However, the whole thing made me think about life and our stuff. It usually doesn’t happen quite as fast as in the scenario I described. However, much of what we spend our money on and consider valuable initially will end up being thrown in a truck and hauled off some day. Over the course of our lives, we will spend a lot of time working to earn money to buy things that don’t last, wear out, go out of fashion, or we simply get bored with.
A long time ago, I came up with an illustration that I have used to help teach on the subject of stewardship. In its basic form, let’s say that someone has a job that pays $ 10 per hour. (yes AOC, I know that is inhumane and we should protest in the streets and rob Bezos and Musk in order to pay them more, but this is just an illustration). That person goes out for dinner after work with friends and ends up spending $ 20 for their meal and non-alcoholic beverages. Not factoring in taxes, they just spent 2 hours of their lives working in order for the privilege of that meal. Now, consider if they bought a car for $ 10,000. That takes 1,000 hours of their life to pay for, not including taxes, title, registration, fuel and maintenance. The point being that everything we spend money on we are actually trading a portion of our life for. If you view it in those terms it can really change your perspective. Seriously, what are the things that are really worth trading your life (time) for?
In the commercials for the Got Junk trucks, they say that you can point at your junk and they will make it disappear. Wouldn’t it be great if life were that simple? There are a lot of things that are vying for our time/money. An honest evaluation of that might reveal that we have some junk in our life that we could get rid of. However, it won’t disappear by simply pointing it out. Although that is a good first step. No, it takes intentionally to evaluate your priorities. Time is a great equalizer. We all only have 24 hours a day. The challenge is to use it wisely for the sake of the Gospel.
Jesus said, “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and these things will be added as well.” The question is, “what are you putting first in your life?”
Hope to see you on Sunday!
Larry
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