Guest Writer: K. Schwartz
I find myself trusting Jesus for a brand new kind of ‘save’ today!
God has rescued me many times in my 26 year walk, but I think I’m in new territory today. My husband and I are officially in the empty-nest phase of life. Problem is, our nest is as far from empty as dusk is from dawn. We have lived in a spacious and comfortable home for the past 21 years with a continual (my husband might say ‘compulsive’) procurement of stuff to fill it. I must admit that for the better part of the past two decades, I have been in a constant hunter-gatherer mode. What I hunted and gathered was rarely essential, largely inconsequential, and currently feeling a lot like a ball and chain.
We are pining for a simpler life style – a bit west in a walking, beach community. Simpler life style and beach community essentially means a cut back in square feet!
If the Lord opens the door for this transition, I am faced with the daunting task of undoing all of the collecting, buying and gathering I have done. I will need to purge our possessions to the bare bones – back to basics, pare down to only what we actually need. Wow, what a concept!
So I am asking, pleading, and begging my sweet Lord to anchor my heart in the truth of Luke 12:15b (ESV): “for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” May this purging process, the giving away and passing on of those things I no longer need, become a delight and a joy. I know this process is more of a cathartic cleanse and less of a painful extraction, but the Lord will need to break those chains of satisfaction in ‘stuff’ I have been enslaved by.
He can do it, of course – free me, free you. Liberation is His specialty! And when He sets me free, I will be free indeed!
