POST 13: You Are More Than Your Stuff
POST 13
You Are More Than Your Stuff
Where do you have the most stuff?
It might be in your closet or drawers. It might be on your phone, your gaming device, an online world.
Maybe where you have the most stuff is where you have the most actual stuff or where you care about your stuff the most or where you wish you had more. Like having enough of the right kinds of shoes. Or taking enough photos of yourself looking a certain way.
Go there right now and take a look around. What do you notice? Think about where, when, and why you got all the things you have in that place now. What things could you do without? What are some things you wish were there?
How complicated has your life become as a result of your stuff? How much stuff do you really need?
Another Way
Whether you don’t need everything you already have or you are struggling to get by, through Jesus’ life you’re invited to live another way. A way that isn’t complicated by the fear and worries that we all know so well but is guided by this simple truth: we can trust God, who knows us and knows our needs.
You aren’t defined by your stuff—neither physical possessions you’ve collected nor digital worlds you’ve constructed. Sometimes subtracting or simplifying can help you see yourself more clearly.
Now, this doesn’t mean you have to live in the dark ages before smartphones, online shopping, or thrift store hauls. But you can probably afford to let go of some stuff in your life—especially stuff that makes you anxious or makes you feel less worthy of love and acceptance.
Simplifying helps us put our trust in God and realize that we are not at the mercy of the pressures and worries that swirl around us. And we might find space to see ourselves, God, and people in our world more clearly.
On the other hand, you also aren’t defined by your lack of stuff. If you or your family is in need more often than not, the absence of material wealth has no claim on who you truly are. Jesus invites us to trust God whether we have enough or whether we’re worried we may not, because God is our heavenly Father who thinks we are worth caring for.
READING GOD’S WORD
Therefore, I say to you, don’t worry about your life, what you’ll eat or what you’ll drink, or about your body, what you’ll wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds in the sky. They don’t sow seed or harvest grain or gather crops into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth much more than they are? Who among you by worrying can add a single moment to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? Notice how the lilies in the field grow. They don’t wear themselves out with work, and they don’t spin cloth. But I say to you that even Solomon in all of his splendor wasn’t dressed like one of these. If God dresses grass in the field so beautifully, even though it’s alive today and tomorrow it’s thrown into the furnace, won’t God do much more for you, you people of weak faith? Therefore, don’t worry and say, “What are we going to eat?” or “What are we going to drink?” or “What are we going to wear?” Gentiles long for all these things. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them. Instead, desire first and foremost God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, stop worrying about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:25–34)
REFLECT AND RESPOND
Journaling Questions
What do you notice about Jesus’ words? What do you think it means to “stop worrying about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself” (v. 34)?
Take a look at your stuff again. Do you have enough? More than enough? If you made a list of what is really important, would all this stuff make the list?
Pray This Prayer
Lord, free me from the deceptive lure of stuff. Remind me over and over that my value isn’t based on what I gather, own, or build but on what you’ve already determined my worth to be. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Pick one thing—physical or virtual—to subtract this week. Choose something that makes you feel less than enough or that raises your anxiety or that is just cluttering your life in some way. After a week, evaluate how you feel and ask yourself whether you can live without it altogether.
THE TAKEAWAY
You are so much more than what you have.