This past weekend my friend Jill was talking about greed and it’s impact in her life. She told a story about how in the week before she was driving down the road in her new vehicle, which she stated many times that she looooved. She was driving down the roadway in said vehicle when a vehicle in the other lane came over into her lane. She swerved and just missed smashing into the concrete wall.
Fortunately for her, she was able to maneuver her vehicle in a way that there was no collision. However, she stated, related to greed, that she wonder how she would have been if she had wrecked the car, which she loved. She was concerned that maybe she was holding on to tight to stuff.
hmm,
Well as many of you know, I live on the phone. Not that I love to talk, I am just on the phone a whole lot. I also love my iPhone! Recently I saw a site where people post pictures of the essential stuff in their lives. For me, its my car keys, my very small money clip/credit card holder, my sunglasses, my iPhone and my Bluetooth headset. With those elements, I can go just about any where and be fine. (sometimes I might want a gallon of sweat tea, and of course at night a toothbrush!)
Anyway, earlier this week, the receiver on my iPhone died. That’s the speaker that you listen with. The headphones work, the speakers work, but the receiver just does not. That makes a phone hard to use! So, no biggie right, just use the Bluetooth headset. Well, it seems that in the last week I have lost my most favorite Bluetooth headset.
argh….
Since then, I have been so anxious. I have spent hours trying to fix my phone. I have spent hours searching my cars, the rooms in the house, my bags, my wife’s bags, dresser drawers, wherever I could look to find that headset.
As a matter of fact I laid in bed Wednesday night, frantically trying to remember where I could have let that headset and lamenting the current state of my favorite piece of technology.
And that’s when I remembered Jill. Could it be that I was getting a message about how much I was “holding on” to these devices. Could if be that I was placing them in front of things that are more important and boom – now they are being taken from me?
I dunno. But I can say that this helped me remember that they are just things. Things the are to be helpers, not rulers.
The book of Colossians compares greed to idolatry.
5Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Colossians 3:5New International Version (NIV)
And I can tell you as much as I use my iPhone and even with the amount of utility it brings to my life, I still really don’t want to think that I worship it! But maybe I have been? What I do know that Jill and my iPhone’s issue have given me a great reminder this week about where my treasure is and where is should be!
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:19-21 New International Version (NIV)
What are you holding on to?
