Being blessed with material wealth, things like a nice home and decorations, cars, clothing and mountains of electronics, is great. I’ve been given all of these things in my life and I’m grateful. But at times, some of these “good things” become “the things” that I begin to worship or protect, in a sense, forgetting what is truly important.
This Could Be Me…This Could Be You
After living in community for a while in Tacoma I met an older couple, not yet retired, but getting close to that stage of life. They were really cool folks who loved food, wine and riding motorcycles. What’s not to like?
I thought they would be a perfect couple to start a missional community up in their neighborhood. When we talked to them about discipleship and mission, they were quick to assure us that they already lived this way and had been praying and looking for just such a church community to be a part of. Awesome.
Myself and another leader went to their house to have lunch and ask and answer a few questions. They had a beautiful home, decorated to the max; it had leather furniture, nice artwork and technology, a very cool place. We were enjoying a pleasant lunch, chatting away as this couple told us how “missional” they were.
Wait A Minute…
We started to ask them about their neighbors, which ones they knew well and how it was going building relationships with the parents and kids that lived all around them. The wife replied, “Oh, we don’t really know any of our neighbors. We’ve never had any of them over.” Hmmm, how could this be, I thought to myself. They just spent the last hour or so telling us about how they live like missionaries. That’s weird…
I mentioned that parents with kids were sort of “low hanging fruit” when it comes to making friends and serving our neighbors. They usually have very obvious needs and are pretty open to relationships. Maybe the wife could become sort of the neighborhood Granny, and love up on these kids after school as a way of serving the parents that worked.
I Really Love My Stuff!
“No way!” she exclaimed. “I don’t want those kids running around in my house! They’ll make a mess and break everything.” My heart sank. We tried to talk to her about this, and how we had all had to learn to love people more than our possessions. (I could speak from experience on this one!) The couple said they would pray about it–a nice Christian dodge–and would see us this weekend at the gathering our church community was having on Sunday.
That couple stuck around the fringes of community for a few more months, never really engaging in mission, and eventually left to be part of a church of people “more our own age.” That whole thing was a little sad, but unfortunately, something that we have run into many times in various forms. Like we saw earlier with Jesus, not everyone will follow us on mission.
Please don’t think this had anything to do with their age.
It didn’t.
It had everything to do with their heart and where their treasures lie. And this hits very close to home for me. [clickToTweet tweet=”How easily good things in life, given to us by God to be a blessing to others, can easily become a barricade instead.” quote=”Isn’t it amazing how easily the good things in life, given to us by God to be used as a blessing to others, can easily become a barricade instead?”]
Isn’t it amazing how easily the good things in life, given to us by God to be used as a blessing to others, can easily become a barricade instead?
Has chasing the “American Dream” of bigger, faster, louder, MORE! become your passion while your faith and Christian life is sort of added in the margins? It can happen very subtly.
If your list of things that have gotten in the way of truly living on mission and loving others well in your home or neighborhood has been growing, the next best time to ask God to redraw your treasure map is now.
You don’t have to let your “stuff” become a burden and a barricade to blessing others.
Leave me your thoughts on all of this below or on Facebook. And would you please share this with someone before you go. As always, thanks for watching.
