Stuff.

Well, it's late, and here I sit recovering from my first dorm meeting of the New Year. You know, one full of little "motherly reminders" (do wear this, don't wear that, stop putting your trash in the hall, don't be smooching the boys off campus - or on campus for that matter, etc.). But the really cool thing is that I could also tell my girls how incredibly proud I am of them, how I wouldn't trade this job for anything in the world, how I wouldn't trade them for any other girls, how I love them so much that it hurts sometimes, and that I could absolutely mean every word of it. I know that I've ratcheted on in the past about how wonderful it is to love what you do, how great God is to put us in jobs that will fulfill us, and on and on and on. But every once in a while, it hits me again, and I just have to repeat myself. (Thanks for your longsuffering.)

School is back in full swing. We are now in our opening revival, and God is blessing us with solid truth that is easily applied right where our students are living. What a blessing! I count myself utterly blessed every time we make it through a revival and I don't feel like I need to do damage control with my girls because of what was preached. Fortunately, that doesn't happen often, but when it does...oh my. Anyway, I won't get stuck there. I'm sure we all have our own horror stories we could tell. :)

I shall now do a wild change of subject. There, it's done. I was reading Luke 12 the other day, and for the first time in my life I saw the beautiful flow of the chapter. It's a familiar chapter, the concepts of which I have heard all my life. I could quote the verses to you, but somehow I never put them all together. I'm speaking particularly of verses 13-34. I'll give them to you in a nutshell. (My quotes are from the NASB. You can read them for yourself later.) It starts off with the story of the rich man who says to himself "I will tear down my barns and build larger." You know the story. Later God says to him, "You fool! This very night your soul is required of you..." Vs. 21 says, "So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." Then in v. 22 Jesus says, "For this reason I say to you, do not worry about your life..." And He goes on to talk about the birds of the air and the lilies of the field and how we shouldn't worry about eating and drinking and other important stuff. Vv. 30-31, "...but your Father knows that you need these things. But seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you." In vv. 33-34 he tells them to sell their possessions and give them to charity, "...make yourselves money belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

The rich man missed it because his heart was with his treasure, and his treasure was all here. In light of that cautionary tale, Jesus tells us not to get hung up with the things of this world. I know that a lot of our stuff is important, but I pray that I will never forget that it's just that..."stuff". I know that I don't make a huge salary (yes, I have noticed that from time to time), and compared to some people I may not have that much. But I also know that compared to the vast majority of the world I live like a queen. And I ask myself, where is my treasure? Where is my heart? Do I have too much stuff? How tightly do I grasp the things I own right now? How would I react if they were all taken away? I don't know that I have it all figured out yet, but I do know that I want my treasure to be in the right place. I don't want to wake up one day and realize that I'm living for "stuff", things that can be taken as quickly as they were given. Things that, in the end, really don't mean that much.

Well, that's what I've been thinking in my little thinker lately. Oh, by the way, I thought that maybe someone out there needed a smile. So, I decided to post this little clip to remind you of the days when simply eating cereal was an adventure.



Watch out for that last bite. It's a doozy!