About a burning fire.

Settling in takes time, I am finding. How does one acquire so many things over the years? Speaking of things, I love coats. It turns out that I bought/acquired 8 more coats in the last couple years of my life. And to think that I have moved them, along with bucket loads of other things, how many times! I must be out of my mind.

But no longer. I refuse to move it all again.

Here is the first load off to Goodwill. More to go, no doubt.

What an interesting concept. Sending things away. Things I brought in at one time, but no longer a necessity, or were a bad idea in the first place, or had simply run its course. I even came across a few clothes, and I would term them my “grubbies” (you know, the ones you mow the lawn in and paint walls in) that were too far gone to give to Goodwill, but not good enough at being bad enough to keep. What is a person to do? Well, if I you live in the country, and I do, you burn them, along with the rest of your trash.

I had never done this before.

There was no other option. I was going to burn the clothes. The grubbies. The has-beens.

How strange. I started the fire and all seemed to change.
God-invented science took over.
Laws of Thermodynamics.
They burned.
They became ash.
They were no more.
How quickly they were gone.

Things of this world are absolutely fleeting. Disposable. Easily destroyed by fire. Or moths. Or rust.

Able to be dissolved in an instant.    

No wonder Jesus tells us to store up for ourselves treasure in heaven. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. One day, the Bible says, ALL OF IT will burn. And what a sad day it will be for you if your life consisted of the temporal, that which burns, rather than the eternal. I don’t want to find myself in that group. I don’t want my sin to be trust in the temporal. I don’t want to have tight grips on things of this world. I want to have a tight grip on God, the only one who is saving me from all the fires.

Last night I was unpacking some clothes and putting them away in a dresser drawer. Without any notice I was overcome by this feeling. A feeling of failure or un-success. Why, you might ask? Well, this was the first time I had put clothes away in a dresser for more than three years.

My “last life” was always on the go. Packing suitcases multiple times a week. Never unpacking. Being so mobile that it wouldn’t have even been smart for me to have a dresser; so I didn’t.

Now though, well, now I have a dresser. With clothes in it.

This is not to say that I won’t be packing suitcases any time soon---I will next week---but this season is going to be a little more settled (I think), a little less mobile (I think). I should be breathing a sigh of relief, and truly I am. Being on the go wears you out. This is coming as a nice break. How unexpected then to be feeling failure. I could almost hear something saying to me, “Oh look, all of that coming and going didn’t produce anything. You didn’t succeed. It was all for naught. It didn’t even really happen. It was all a dream. You are right back where you started. You haven’t gained any ground.”

 Do you ever feel like what you have done was in vain? Or that it didn’t produce what you thought it would? It gave you the unexpected? It was a sad moment of those thoughts I was having.

I was mulling that around in my head, wondering if there really was anything different, or if I truly was right where I had started, if any of it had even happened at all or if it all was just a dream.

Feeling weighted down, I finished the task at hand.

“Lord, did any of that really happen? Am I actually a different person now? Did I really gain all of those things? Was I really in those places?”
Soberly I walked into my closet and something caught my attention. There before me was a row of coats.

“Yeah,” Jesus said, “It all really happened. You were in those places, you did gain all of those experiences and things. And look, you’ve got the coats to prove it.”

I smiled. And thanked the Lord for a tangible reminder.

Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
⁷ Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
¹⁰ As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
¹¹ so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

¹² You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
¹³ Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the LORD’s renown,
for an everlasting sign,
that will endure forever.”
Isaiah 55.

Store up your treasures in heaven, wolfies. There is no fire that can touch them there.