God Holds a High Bar: Be Rich Toward God

No matter how we repeat Jesus' story of the greedy farmer who wants to build a bigger barn to store all his grains from his abundant crops, we can see a scolding or moralistic sermon on stewardship coming from a mile away.  (Luke 12: 13-21)  And when we add Colossians 3: 1-11 in which Paul scolds us for our licentious, selfish behaviors, we turn off our hearing aids or daydream ourselves into la-la land.

Instead.....I hear encouragement and promise of transformation into new life in these scriptures.  I can identify with the farmer as I de-clutter my overstuffed house in preparation to move.  The initial estimate from the moving company was as loud as God's voice to the farmer to motivate me to begin to discern between the essentials and non essentials in the accumulation of my life.  My house (and therefore my daily living) has been filled with things that please me and make me happy.  But my blue pottery and my pewter collection need regular dusting and my yarn calls out to me when I should be studying.  My over abundance of possessions possess my attention and distract me from attending to God.  And when I allow my choices of going, doing, or playing to be the only forces to shape me and form me, I allow too little time to be shaped and formed by God's Word.

The encouragement and promise of these scriptures is that my things don't need to dominate nor define me.  I CAN de-clutter both my things and my time in an effort to discover the true wealth that comes from God.  I am finding freedom in my trips to Goodwill, Salvation Army, and the library.  I am already imagining the discoveries others will make as they select my goods for their uses.  I'm practicing discerning what I value as I see my things and my choices more clearly through the eyes of God.  I am being re-clothed into new life and there is plenty of abundance in this simplicity that allows more time for God to speak and me to listen.  God's bar of abundance is a high one that can be obstructed by our desire for too many things, too much entertainment, and too much time pleasing ourselves.  But as I clear the path toward God's high bar, I find that the bar becomes closer, clearer, and is calling to me.

Thanks be to God that God is faithfully steady in holding this bar as I tiptoe toward it.

Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley