Not Our Stuff

My husband and I attend the First Christian Church of the Lanai. And not just on Sundays. Every morning. Okay okay. That means we go out onto our lanai, put on some classical music, drink our coffee, and read our Bibles and a few devotionals. Every day. How blessed we are. Anyway, this morning one of the devotional readings, warning against greed, made this statement: "we should not say 'my things', but rather 'the things that God has given unto me.'"There really is a big difference. I once heard someone say, "I never saw a hearse with a luggage rack." We never really own anything that we can't take with us when we die, do we? We can only enjoy what God has provided for us in this life.

This brings me back to our lanai. We live in a condo, and just outside our lanai, at the back of our building, is a narrow strip of grass with an even narrower strip of mulched "garden" area just beyond. This strip of miscellaneous vegetation is just feet from our lanai, and runs the length of our building. It's comprised of various small trees, shrubs and plants. Now it's not the job of our lawn care contractors to maintain this strip of plants. So some of the guys on the board, one guy in particular, keep it up. Also, anyone who wants to keep the patch behind their individual condo spruced up is welcome to do so. We've added a few personal touches of our own to the patch behind our condo. An ornament or too, some potted plants, and some plants we've planted in the ground. This is our little slice of Paradise that greets us every day as we report to our morning devotional time. We tend to think of it as "our garden". But it's not true. The fact is, that strip of land is actually "common area" which means it simply belongs to the condo association, not any individual homeowner. So whatever we plant out there, we have no claim to. Theoretically, it could be dug up, moved and replanted in another area. And it has happened. The one guy who does most of the weeding and tending and planting out there has a habit of chopping down what he thinks doesn't belong, and moving things around. He's pretty careful about not moving something he knows was specifically planted by an owner. Still, this has caused some commotion and not a little grumbling by people questioning his right or his authoritity to do this. But the fact is, most of the rest of us don't want to share in the responsility of tending the entire thing. He just does it because he loves to do it. And besides, when he does something that some people consider overstepping his bounds, he actually has the big picture in mind. He moves things and replants and prunes and weeds for the greater good. So that the whole strip will look nice. And usually he moves or prunes what he himself planted at one time.

Anyway, the point is, what we generally consider "our" garden, really isn't. It's just there for our enjoyment. So we enjoy it, and we try to cool our irritation when something changes out there. This is true of life. What we consider ours really isn't. We can't hang onto anything really. Money can be used up, jobs can be lost, homes can be destroyed, posessions can be stolen, health can be compromised. On and on it goes. It sounds kind of scary if you let your imagination run away with all the undesirable possibilities. But it all comes back to the idea that it's not our stuff. They are the things that God has given unto us.

So enjoy the day. Enjoy the gifts. Give praise for the loan. And give thanks for all.