Value

     Just the other day as I was working in my garden and contemplating the possible refinance of our house, it struck me how incredibly wealthy I am. Honestly, the weight of it took my breath away. What I realized was this: I live in a country privileged enough to assess the value of a property by its attractiveness and convenience rather than the feasibility of obtaining food from it.

     That may seem like a small thing, but I assure you it is not. It was not many decades ago that any one of us would have given the majority of our time to the collecting and preparing of food for storage, hoping only to stock up enough to pull us through the winter. The value of a place of residence would have been in the sturdiness of the structure, the nearness to a water supply, and the possibility of having a milk cow or two, some live beef, a few chickens for eggs and meat, and a sunny place to grow food. Our concern would not have been in having a perfectly balanced diet, but in having enough food for the year so that we could have any kind of diet at all.

    This thinking led me to remember that, in many places, people still live this way. There are children who have never had a full belly in their lives. There are moms whose daily hope is that they can lug home enough muddy water to keep their families alive for one more day. These do not have the luxury of deciding not to cook a particular dish because they prefer the taste of something else; if they have food, they eat it. Many do not have mattresses or bed frames--many do not even own shoes. To so many people in this world, the idea of decorating a living space or color-coordinating fabrics, carpets, and paint is an utterly foreign and entirely frivolous thought. If they could step into any one of our homes, they would be awed by the sheer sumptuous nature of our lifestyle. A trip to Target or Wal-Mart would be totally overwhelming as they tried to take in the sheer volume of stuff. The gadgets and gizmos that many of us take for granted would be down right shocking to those who are not even in the habit of having basic needs met.

     We are truly wealthy. I do wonder, though, for how long? Can this opulence last forever? Can it even last many more decades? It is a sobering thought to realize how fragile a thing our wealth truly is. A good string of natural disasters could reduce us to basic needs again--fighting to feed our families, to find clean water, hoarding our existing clothing and food. I wonder how long it would take us to redefine our ideals of value.

     I suppose these are not happy thoughts. With the current drought, the other natural disasters in recent years, the rising costs of fuel and groceries, and the continued slowdown of our economy, it does not take a terribly creative mind to imagine a dire future in which these things only worsen. It is not difficult to foresee a future time when we are forced out of our affluent bubble into the harsh, cold reality that greets much of the world each morning.

     So what hope have we, then? Well, in truth, if what we value is comfort, pleasure and the pursuit thereof, assorted gadgetry, and the latest and greatest models of everything, then our hope is fragile indeed. These things will certainly fail us sooner or later, and none is guaranteed--at least not without the purchase of an extended warranty.

     There is, however, one thing of value that we can cling to even if we should be faced with financial ruin, economic and social collapse, or any major disaster imaginable. That is the Kingdom of God. It is a thing of eternal and unparalleled worth that will never diminish in value or break. If we surrender our lives to Christ, we are promised a place in that House that will not perish. But surrender we must, laying aside all that we hold dear to cling to Him and Him alone.

     Once we have truly and completely yielded to Him, giving Him preeminence in our hearts; making Him the focus, the crux, the motivation by which we live and work and draw breath; then we find that He will allow us to keep some--but not all--of what we have gladly relinquished for His sake.

     You see, He requires only our entire allegiance, and He will suffer no rival, be it so small a thing as a favorite hobby or a teeny-tiny little addiction to technology -- or anything else. The beauty part, however, is that He is the most valuable Person we can ever meet, and His Kingdom is everlasting. Once we devote ourselves completely to Him, loving others because He first loved us and abiding in Him, utterly wrapped up in preoccupation with Him, His love, and to His service --we have found something of supreme worth. We will then find that His words to "Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things [our daily needs] will be added to you," are true. The difference is, they will no longer have any hold on us.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Romans 8:14-18

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
Luke 14:27-33

 Scripture quotations are from the ESV^® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version^®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.