Confession of a Packrat

I have a confession to make. I am an incurable packrat! If you were to walk in my garage or basement at Kyle’s house (my new storage area) and begin to explore the boxes stored there you would finds things that might seem of no use at all. And, truthfully, you probably would be correct! But I have saved them anyway, “just in case.” I once rented a storage building for things I had run out of room to store at the house. There I had placed boxes of files and books that were shelved in my study when I pastored full time. There were thousands of books stored there. Would I ever use them? It was doubtful with the advent of so many resources on the Internet. However, I still held on to them, “just in case.” While I could do a better job of discarding the things that aren’t of any use any longer, or giving them to someone who may be able to use them, the following story illustrates the opposite position.

At the height of the Napoleonic era, French troops fanned out around the globe to share the "best" of France with their colonies and to bring the best things from those colonies back to France. Included in this "cultural exchange" was a storehouse filled with ancient Egyptian artifacts. As the empire waned, many of these treasures found their way into the basement of the Paris museum. In the 1940's some workmen uncovered a burial case squeezed into an obscure corner of the basement. They decided that the box would make an excellent storage space for many of the treasures. Without consulting the museum's caretakers, they simply emptied the contents into the sewer and filled it with odds and ends of Egyptian artifacts. Only later did they discover that they had inadvertently disposed of the remains of Egypt's most famous queen, Cleopatra.

It’s strange how people keep things that aren’t of any use and discard things that are of great value! This is what the Apostle Peter meant in his first letter:

So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious. (1 Peter 2:1-4 ESV).

Perhaps you need to reevaluate what you’ve kept and what you’ve discarded. With Christ it is not too late to get back what you may have discarded. Perhaps soon I will donate my library to a church or a seminary student who may be able to use it; however, I will not give away the thirst for more knowledge of Christ. Whatever source may bring me into more knowledge of His grace and peace, I desire to keep and explore that! How about you? Do you need to go through some of the things you’ve been storing in your spiritual life? Perhaps there are some things that need to be discarded. Perhaps there are some things you have inadvertently stepped away from and need to recover. Get those things back today!