Wednesday, November 22, 2017

                Apparently, my blog site is being seen as a large industrial business.  Last week I received a very thick catalogue addressed to The Unconventional Baptist. The ULINE catalogue’s slogan is “beyond the box” which means over 700 pages of everything I would ever need to run a factory, a business, a store, a shop, or anything that is housed in a large building.  Boxes, labels, bags, vacuums, breakroom supplies, office supplies like pens, markers and tape, work gloves, trollies. You name it and they’ve got it. I just don’t need it.

It makes my little desk tucked here in the corner of the family room seem so small and insignificant. I am not sure where I could fit the stainless-steel drum although the drum cradle is a nice accessory.

It may not be the Sears’ Christmas Wish Book, (now, sadly defunct) but I know what I am getting everyone for Christmas. Who couldn’t use a nice pair of green(ish) chemical resistant gloves? Every home needs a bulk soap dispenser. If I spend over $300 I get a free T-Shirt.

We are inundated with so many things that we don’t really ever need. We are deluged by information. We are overwhelmed with a myriad of choices, decisions, possibilities, opportunities and bulk data.

Sometimes, the information we get is useless for the situation we are in. It doesn’t fit who we are or what we are experiencing or what we really need. But it can get stuck in our heads or clutter up our hearts or complicate our spirits.

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Luke 12:34)  Jesus’ words speak of the value of decluttering all the stuff that we come across and fills up our lives  and instead focus on what has deep, significant, lasting value.  The Kingdom Life which Jesus finds so precious is one that lives without encumbrance in a loving, liberating, transformative, gracious, fulsome state of well-being. It is a life that does not hoard, amass, collect, pile up or accumulate. It is a life free from gluttony and greed.

It is a life that discovers with joy that life is better when we freely and generously give away all that we have as Jesus once said. The real treasures are the people around us, family and friends but even the stranger becomes our neighbour in this Kingdom Life of blessings.

There is no catalogue when it comes to Kingdom Living. Yet everything about this kind of life resonates with blessing and abundance.

                But, sorry – no free T-shirt!

Dale