Giving a Lifetime Away

I’ve now reached the stage where I’m disposing of all the tackle I’ve carted around with me for decades. I've come to see it as a real waste of space.

There’s very little that I keep merely out of sentiment; I am simply not the sentimental type. Rather I peer into the storage boxes from time to time and reason, “This could come in handy sometime – I’d better hang on to it“. Utility is normally my only compelling excuse for clinging onto something.

Sometimes this keeping of things because they might be needed one day turns out to be wise. In my present home and circumstances I’ve been more fulfilled and involved in many ways than I have been for decades. I find myself trotting out garden tools that have been sitting around uselessly for all those years. Now at last they really come into their own. I think how foolish I would have been to give them away at a time when my garden was small and I didn’t have the energy to work it anyway. Many other tools, gadgets and devices, however, have had their day and are just gathering dust.

I could try to make money out of them – monetise, as they call it – by selling them on eBay, but frankly I just can’t be bothered. There is an easy way to dispose of them and that is the impressive series of jumble sales that is going on at the Village Hall Saturday after Saturday in the run-up to Christmas. What is to me a discarded piece of junk may well turn out to be somebody’s ideal Christmas present or just fit right in their scheme of things.

All sorts of Bible texts come to mind as I carry out this reassessment of my possessions and shed all this formerly precious stuff:

“... we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world” (1 Timothy 6:7 ESV)

“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary” (Luke 10:41-42)

“... let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus …” (Hebrews 12:1-2)

And so it goes on.

There may be the odd thing that I really end up missing. I think of a particular book I gave away that I suddenly find I could do with having back. Yet 99% of the time I simply don’t miss the stuff that I hoarded so assiduously for so long.

Another way of getting rid of clutter like papers, photos and books is to digitise it. I have spent hours scanning and storing photos on disk, where they take up no space at all. The other storage which takes up no physical space is what stored in your mind. If I can treasure up Bible passages and hymns in my memory, I have a really useful store that I can draw on at need. It enables me to think healthy thoughts and perhaps say helpful words.

Even memory needs a certain amount of housekeeping and management, though. There are bad memories that I wish to chase away. Jesus teaches us that it is then important immediately to fill the available (mental) space with good things. May He grant that what is uppermost in my mind when I reach my last is wholesome thoughts as I prepare to receive His welcome beyond the river.

Comfort

The Our Daily Bread notes one morning recently reminded me of an important truth about the word “comfort”. 

The story was about someone who emerged from an operation in a highly agitated state. This person had a breathing tube down his throat and his arms were restrained by the side of him in order to stop him pulling the vital tube out. With the stress of it all he was shaking and struggling. Then a nurse came and, to his surprise, held his hand. It was a gentle gesture which had a most powerful effect. The man calmed down straight away.

The word “comfort” is not just about soothing someone. It has more to do with empowering and strengthening them.

It reminded me of an illustration from the Bayeux Tapestry, the massive, 68-metre-long piece of embroidery that takes the viewer through the story of the Norman Conquest of England, culminating in the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066.

During that event, an unexplained fit of panic set in among the Norman knights, causing them to flee in disorder. The battle threatened to turn against the Normans. Then a Norman bishop, who had a club in his hand because he was not allowed to wield a spear, rode up and prodded some of the knights in the back, encouraging them to turn around, face the foe and attack again. It proved to be the turning point in the battle.

The caption above it literally reads, “Bishop Odo is ‘comforting’ his lads.” We plainly see that the original meaning of the word which we know as “comfort” is to encourage someone, to spur them on to new ventures.

The word “comfort” is used some 80 times in the Bible. Try reading it with its original meaning of “encourage” and see what picture it gives you. The apostle Paul keeps repeating it deliberately in his second letter to the Christians at Corinth:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3-7 ESV, emphasis mine).

In the original language, this gives a picture of somebody coming alongside someone else (rather than riding up behind them!) and speaking to them words which will spur them on to take courage.

Jesus Christ wishes to encourage you to take heart and walk confidently through life with Him today. In turn, you may be able to encourage someone else who is struggling by telling them His story and giving them His message.