Too Much Baggage

John and I moved into our new house last weekend (still waiting on the old house to sell!). We've spent a good deal of the past week unpacking boxes. I put the master bedroom boxes off as long as I could, mainly because the job seemed overwhelming. At our former house, I essentially had 2 1/2 closets to myself. Even though our new house is bigger, we would like to consilidate and keep all of our clothes in one room, which meant that I had to find space in my one closet for 7 large boxes of stuff. To say I was intimidated would be putting it mildly. Now, the interesting part is that I unpacked three suitcases worth of clothing the first night after our move. I had been surviving just fine on the clothes from these three suitcases, using the still-packed boxes as tables to rest hairbrushes, scissors, and my gym bag. To most bystanders, it would make sense to question what I needed with those 7 extra boxes of clothes. Granted, some of them were filled with warmer weather clothes and shoes, but some simply held more sweaters and sweatshirts and other winter attire. Yesterday, our pastor talked about the poor at church, and coming back to our house after that sermon, it became clear to me that I have an absolutely obscene amount of stuff.

God has blessed me with tremendous wealth. Not wealth like Tom Cruise or Jennifer Aniston, but the same kind of wealth that most Americans take for granted. God has blessed us with a beautiful home, two cars (and we both work at the same place!), and an abundance of clothes and other possessions. We have a warm bed to sleep in at night and hot water in our showers in the morning. Between the two of us, we have four televisions, three DVD players, two surround sound systems, three computers, countless DVD's, VHS tapes, and CD's, a pantry and a refridgerator overflowing with food, and more blankets than will comfortbaly fit into our linen closet. When I stepped back yesterday and looked at all that we own that I take for granted, I was sickened. By America's standards, we aren't even considered wealthy, we're considered middle class. Yet we moved into our new house with an obnoxious excess of baggage that most of the world's population could not even imagine. Who am I to ever go to God asking for more when I have far more than my share already? I must seem so disgustingly ungrateful to Him. Pages could be written about why it's difficult for the rich to enter God's kingdom (Matthew 19:24). I won't try to tackle that issue here other than to say that living in our society of excess, it's easy to get so distracted by what you don't have that you forget to be thankful for what you do have.

On this note, I finally decided to start opening the boxes in the bedroom with my name on them. I emptied two boxes that the box company labeled "extra large" and began to fill them with clothes and shoes that I had no business hording any longer. We will drop these clothes off to AmVets this week. And because I have such an obscene amount of stuff, I don't expect to feel the loss too sorely if at all. I am awed that God would bless me with so much knowing how despicably ungrateful my heart would be towards the abundance. I live in a society of more, more, more, but that is no excuse for my own greed. Christians are called to live God's way, not the world's way (1 Peter 2:11). God has given me much, and I don't want to be blind to His blessings. I want Him to use all He has given me for His kingdom and His purposes--for His glory and not mine. Jesus said, "Much is required from those to whom much is given, and much more is required from those to whom much more is given" (Luke 12:48). God has given me much, much more than what I need. As long as He chooses to bless me, I want to thank Him for it and pray that I would be increasignly open to opportunities to return to Him what He has given to me by blessing others in His name.