He's the One thing.

this might end up being one of those posts that i regret publishing so quickly, without reading it over and over, but sometimes just writing when you can feel all the feelings the strongest is the best way to express yourself.

i started this year with grandiose plans to change the way i saw money, and stuff and spending. i set out to embark on this challenge i saw on lara casey's blog. i even wrote half a post about how i'm not buying anything new and i'm not eating out, planning to post it with all its glorious details in january for the world wide web to see.

but as you may have noticed, its now february and i have posted no such thing. it never felt right. i never could find the words that did it justice, but still sounded like me.

that's changed. and so here i sit in mcconn, at 11pm on a monday finally realizing what God wanted to teach me through this whole contentment challenge. finally realizing that the details matter less and the lesson matters most.

He's the one thing that matters. He's the only thing we get to keep forever.

i was scrolling through instagram for the one zillionth time yesterday and saw a post about a family who had been affected by mold and was losing a lot of their possessions. i didn't have time to really read about it then, and i was sad for them, but i didn't understand the weight of their situation until i had time to read through their blog just now.

to give you the short version, they've been living in a house with toxic black mold for a long time and it is costing them everything. unborn babies. their home. their health. their wealth. their lives, maybe. every single possession they own. gone. given away or destroyed.

and i know deep down in my heart that this challenge i'm giving myself of spending less and wanting less and giving away more is so small in comparison to this battle they're fighting. and i know i don't fully understand the pain they feel. for me, it was a choice. for them, it's out of their control.

i sat in mcconn and cried as i read their story. and i told my friend about it as i got some tea from mcconn, and he said his family went through a mold situation when he was 10, and  then it got more real and i cried a little bit more. because i realized what He's been saying more fully and clearly than i ever had before.

He's the one thing that matters. He's the only thing we get to keep forever. 

the only thing we get to take to heaven is what we can fit in our brains and hearts and spirits and souls. we don't get to take anything else. i've heard people say, "you can't take a suitcase to heaven!" probably a thousand times, but still i acquire a bunch of stuff. a little shopping here, a little shopping there and soon my closet is busting at the seams and i'm sitting on piles and piles, drawers and drawers, boxes and boxes of stuff that doesn't. even. matter.

the Lord is constantly asking me to check my heart and challenge me in how content i am. when i'm scrolling through pinterest and see something i want to buy. when i want to get new spring clothes. when i want to try new makeup. when i want to buy new prints for my wall because my favorite etsy shop is having a sale. when my friend gets a cool new thing and i want one too.
He whispers in the gentlest way,

"where's your treasure?"

and i say, "its in You!"

but until this very moment i didn't even get what that really means. i didn't understand what it meant to really give up everything. to really hold everything loosely in my hands.

i think contentment is a choice. being content is making a choice to believe everything the Lord has given you for right this second is enough. it's choosing to believe that none of it is yours anyway and that every single thing you call "yours" could be taken away from you in exactly one second. it sounds dramatic, i guess, but really its just reality. contentment is choosing to believe that everything you have and don't have doesn't matter as long as you have the Lord. as long as He's still good, its enough. He's enough.

would i give it all up? would i give it all away? would i hand a stranger every dollar i had on me if i thought they needed it? no strings attached? would i give away something i loved, knowing i'd never be able to replace it, if He asked me to? would i give my iphone away? would i empty my bank accounts for someone else who needed it?

i know there are people who think i'm a little crazy. a little radical maybe. but doing what Jesus told us to do isn't radical, its just obedience. He wasn't unclear when He said it may cost us everything to follow Him. He wasn't asking the disciples to be radical when He told them to leave everything and follow Him, He was just asking them to be obedient, to trust Him. i don't think there is any such thing as "radical christianity" or "radical giving." there is just normal obedient christianity. and normal obedient giving. (and no, i don't want to debate about that with you.)

He's just asking me to be obedient. to hold it all loosely. to fix my eyes right on His face and stop worrying about the rest. to stop wanting anything more than Him. i don't pretend like that's easy. and i don't pretend like i'm very good at it. but i don't want to pretend like its not what He's asking me to do, either.

heidi baker once said, "my only regret is that when i see Him, i'll have held something back that i could have lavished." what a way to live. regretting only that you could have gave more.

i also want to say that i'm certainly not saying this is what He is asking you to do too, i don't want that responsibility. but i hope you'll understand more clearly that it's all about Him, not just in the end, but right now too.

because He's the one thing that matters. He's the only thing we get to keep forever. 

ko.