Day 4211 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Luke 12:15 NIV

More is less

If in regard to nothing else but room itself. And that’s simply because within our lives, within our eyes, within our minds there can fit only so much. We’ve only so much time within this life in which to find what all there is that we’re here to find, to feel, to figure out, to forge, to forget, to race toward and/or walk away from. To everything in and of this life there is an inherent limitation in some respect and to some degree. The problem then seems to be that as a people we still seek to see the kind of majority that allows us no room for anything.

For, again, the more we have the less room we do.

Because, well, everything takes up space. It may be that of the literal, physical space around us such as within our houses. This version we all know rather well as we all know rather well the amount of stuff we’ve at present crammed within our nooks and crannies. We all know the extra stuff that’s stored either in our garages, attics, basements or storage units that, while still ours, doesn’t have that certain something that would find it invited into our houses. We all know the number of things hung on our walls and how little room we’ve left to hang any more.

And so we can all witness and in this find a firm grasp of this idea as to the limitations of space in which to store those things that we have.

And we all know what it’s like to indeed have so much that we’ve had to start picking and choosing that which is kept closest and that which at first gets stuffed into closets and then the attic and from there into boxes stacked inside of a storage locker that we literally have to pay for just to hold all the stuff that we still love the idea of our still having just not quite so much as we love the other stuff that we have.

But I think the entire issue here is found in that.

It’s that it’s all things we have. And while possession is considered 9/10 of the law, our possessions are all we really seem to care about, focus on, look at, look for. Indeed, life here has devolved into an endless search for always more stuff. And I can see both how and why to this we’ve all come to succumb. I mean, just look at the sum of everything around us that this world offers to sell us, give us, help us get or convince us we should! It’s truly mind blowing the number of things we can have within this world.

And all of us, having found in our awareness of however much of this world’s all that we’ve all seen for ourselves, all of us have indeed come to crave or consider we need a great number of things.

And that’s where things start to get dicey.

It’s in that desire for more. And that’s because, well, this world continues to prove that it will continue to produce the same. We’re truly a people of production and consumption. So much of life revolves around the making of something that someone else continues to keep buying. It’s what we’re about anymore. We all go to work to do a job that involves some kind of benefit offered unto the world around us (for a nominal fee of course) during which we earn a wage with which we’re then able to pay our own nominal fees for all the things that are made by other people doing other jobs.

I reckon that’s why that question is always the first we ask whenever we meet somebody new.

“Hi whoever you are, what do you do?”

Indeed, I’ve seen countless instances in which people have had to circle back to asking their name again because they were so interested in what this new person did for a living that they didn’t pay any attention to what their name was. Why? Because names don’t matter to us. No, what matters to us is what this person does as within said skills or trade or other means of employment they may well have something to offer us at some point in time.

We’re vastly more worried about what others can offer us than we are our even getting to know who they are.

In fact, we don’t care who they are. Now we may come to should a friendship or something like that form over the course of time. But, let’s be honest, that doesn’t happen very often and so we always sort of resort back to seeing what it is that we might glean or gain from this stranger with a name that we don’t know because we weren’t listening when they introduced themselves as rather we were eager to figure out what all they might have to offer in regard to the work that they do.

Work that is again only done unto the offering of something to someone.

That’s what work is. Even if we work for ourselves, which I do as I own my own business, even this is something that always involves the offering of something to someone else.

In fact, the only way that I can think of at the moment to go to work at a job that has no benefit or tangible outcome to offer unto someone would be for our to go live in the woods and spend the rest of our lives living off the land and never again see another human being.

And, while the thought of that seems mighty intriguing sometimes, to me at least, even then though the fact is that all that we’d do out there by ourselves would be still offering outcomes to ourselves. For even such work as cutting down trees to build a little hut, that would be work that was done to benefit us. And thus, yeah, no matter what we do nor how few it might matter to, all that we do is done unto the offering of something to someone.

Again, that’s what work is.

It’s productive which means it’s producing something that’s considered worth the wage that we earn while we spend however long we do each and every day doing whatever it is that we do that there’s thus enough monetary means by which to afford to pay us our wage. Monetary means which are found in the fact that other people are willing to pay unto the place for which we work part of the money for which they work to have whatever it is that is offered to them via the work we do for the wage we earn doing it.

It’s pretty simple when you stop and think about it.

Problem is we don’t.

In fact I don’t think that we think about much these days. Rather life has become this maze, this craze, this thing in which we crave and carve that which we hope another will crave so that for it they’ll pay what we need to make to make our way to have that thing that someone else has made that we ourselves have come to crave.

And that’s the problem.

It’s that we’ve all come into such an endless dance with idolatry that we maybe don’t even see it as such. Rather, odds are we just see it all as stuff. Harmless little stuff. Stuff that doesn’t take up too much effort or too much time or too much interest or focus in our lives. No, it’s all harmless. It’s all simple. It’s all novel and new and something borrowed and something blue.

But it’s all something, isn’t it?

And that’s my point. Everything that is something, even be it an idea, a word, all things take up room. Ideas ask our minds to let them in so that we can think about them. Words require ears willing to actually listen rather than merely hear. Even the sights we see of the things we can’t actually keep, they take up room in our memories. And, again, we all know well the example of the physical stuff we have around us. From wherever you sit you can see something that exists in this world that is thus taking up room in this world.

Now sure, it might not take up much room. And yeah, in this world there’s always seemingly plenty of room. This world is a big place. Our houses are big things. Our minds are arguably bigger than both as within them we can hold ideas and conceptualizations of even things that aren’t yet or that in this world won’t fit or can’t happen.

But friends, to everything that is there is a limit.

Even our minds can only have but so many thoughts within a day. Our eyes can only see so many things before they get tired and need some sleep. Our walls can only hold so many posters and pictures before they simply run out of room to hang any more.

But the issue seems to have become that our hearts don’t run out of the ability to want something more. To desire something else. To keep us of the ability to take stock of all that we have (ideas, thoughts, dreams, plans and possessions) and find in something else this world offers us something else that we think we could use or might need.

Indeed, to the concept of need we know no limit. And that’s because this people we’ve become hasn’t any understanding of the difference between need and want.

For it all involves mostly only stuff. And, well, where there’s stuff there’s someone who will want it.

This is something that all of us have experienced inside every single day of our lives.

Problem is that whereas little kids want only to be fed and to fall asleep being held by their mother, as we get older we both become too big and heavy to be held and we eventually find that there’s plenty more to find than just food and naps.

Man, I wish we go back to that!

But we can’t. And honestly, anymore I don’t even know that we would if we could. And I say that because we’ve all become so amazed by so many things that to give up our ability to crave always more would be to all but give up our lives.

And we’ve proven time and again that that’s not something we’re interested in.

Because we like our lives. We enjoy our lives. We’ve worked hard to make our lives whatever it is that we think we’ve made them as is probably at least partly defined by what we have within them. Indeed, so much of who we are anymore is quite easily either summed up or simply assumed within what we have. And yeah, I’m horribly guilty of this myself! And that’s because, as of this very moment in time I have 36 things hung upon the walls within my room while stacks of more wait sitting on the floor for me to find time in a fairly busy life with which to figure out where they’re to hang amongst the other 36.

I have literally hundreds of things, all of which I’ve desired enough to have decided to work enough to make enough to afford enough to have bought all of this stuff.

And I’ve hung so much of it up because I do indeed enjoy it. I appreciate it. I marvel in fact at my ability to have found such things as music made by my favorite bands and a beauty discovered in nature such as that seen within the massive poster behind me of a tiger. I am truly grateful that God’s given me the ability to appreciate things in this life.

But along the way I’ve too come to find what is this worry that if I don’t hurry up and hang up all of my favorite stuff that I will indeed keep wasting time and thoughts in my mind about all the other stuff that I could/would come to want to add to the stack.

And I don’t want that.

Why?

Because I want a life. I want to have conversations with my family instead of spending that same time on ebay. I want to go for a walk with a childhood friend rather than finding one more plastic trophy upon which my money to spend. I want to learn how to cook a new meal instead of having to mow one more yard just so I can earn a little more money that I’ll come to spend eventually upon something that someone else made at a job they too have to do to make money for themselves that they’ll too spend on something else.

I’m tired of something else.

I’m bored of always buying more.

I’ve grown sick of stuff.

Because, yeah, there’s no life in it. The confusion we seem to have is that we have it in life. But in fact, no, there is no life in that which we have in this life. The poster behind me, it’s not really a tiger. The autographed cd’s filling up the wall across from me, the people who made them aren’t in them. The mower that I use for my business, it’s just sitting there motionless waiting for me to make it move. It’s lifeless.

It’s all lifeless.

And so then why do we give so much of our lives to it?

Sure, such as the mower that I use for my business, I need it for my business as cutting a yard with a pair of scissors would take me forever. But I need that mower because with it I make the money that I use to help afford things such as groceries. And we need groceries as, well, our bodies fare far better when fed. Same said of water, we can go longer without food than we can water. But they charge for water too, don’t they?

Indeed, this world’s found a way to attach a price to everything.

And so we have to do things in order to make money so that we can have things.

But how many things do we really need?

How many things truly contribute to our lives? How many of the things we have could we literally go on living without?

But how many are we disinterested in living without simply because they’ve come to mean so much to us that we can’t imagine our lives without them?

Again, this is the problem. It’s that we’ve come to assume a necessity to almost everything. And since we’re so able to see a need inside of nearly everything, we’ve also come to spend our lives seeking always for more of all those things that we think that we need. And thus, because of the time and focus and effort we give unto getting them, we’ve become the ones putting our lives into them.

Read that again.

That’s the issue with idols. They’re all lifeless as they have no life to give. They can give us excitement, enjoyment, pleasure or perhaps even peace in our lives. But nothing made by humans has life in it to give. Rather everything in and of this world only takes life away via the time it takes thinking about it, the effort it takes either finding it or making it, the room it takes having it and storing it.

Everything in this world takes up room in our lives, our eyes, our houses, our minds.

And we’ve only so much of such to give.

Question is what are we giving it to and does the answer have anything of life to give back?

The sad reality is that the honest answer is no. No, the vast majority of things we focus on in this life do not have life to offer us in return. May add something to our lives. May make our lives feel better or go better. May make our lives easier or safer or more productive. But my point is that one day the production’s going to end and we’ll all then be found before Him who will judge what all we did with our lives unto the determination He alone will decide as to whether we move on from here toward eternal life or, well, the other.

Problem is that idols take up both time in our lives and thoughts in our minds that we could give to Him instead.

And He’s the One who can give life. He’s the One who has given life. He’s given all of us life, and that in fact twice. He gave us our lives which we’re all living however we’re living them and He also gave us His life as He hung upon our cross thanks to our all having lost our way thanks to our all living this life seeking for things that don’t lead us back to Him but rather only take from Him all that we should be giving unto Him.

And that’s a problem my friends! And one that He’s told us explicitly that He will not put up with. “I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols.” Isaiah 42:8

Indeed, He is a jealous God and has every right to be. After all, He created everything and thus deserves to have everything that He created live and exist in such a way that shows forth an endless appreciation unto Him for Him having created it.

We haven’t.

Rather we’ve learned to spread our praise and appreciation amongst an ever-growing list of things that we’ve learned to like in life.

And no, He’s not upset with us having things.

But He is angered whenever we agree to things having us.

And that’s the difference that we’re all going to learn someday. The hope is that we come to learn it inside this place in which we have a life in which situations and circumstances and even devotions can change. Yes, the call is for all to change through the process of repentance in which we give up our fallen ways spent craving falling things and turn instead unto that life in which we give our lives to pleasing Him rather than ourselves.

Friends, we can only do that here.

But again, here do we everything else for everything that isn’t Him.

All while thinking that there exists an abundance of life inside an abundance of stuff. It doesn’t. In fact, the more stuff we have in life, the less life we have having spent so much of it trying to have and hold all we convince ourselves we need to have and hold.

But the truth is that this world has nothing to offer us as, well, this world hasn’t life to offer. We need to live. But His promise is that we won’t if we don’t stop living for all we don’t need.

So indeed, let us become weary, worried of all semblance of greed. For while there exists here plenty of things to give our lives to having in our lives, there is no life here for us to find. In fact, He told us that too. That none of us by worrying about anything can add even a minute unto our lives. Let us then stop losing minutes to things that can’t give them back and rather spend our lives giving unto Him everything He deserves for He’s the One who can give us more time, more life.

Just not if we’ve too much room in our hearts, our minds filled with other things that leave Him less room all the time.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold