A very close friend of my sister took ill recently while on a short break in France. Although she showed considerable signs of improvement in the days following, eventually an infection took her life. Since they had been good friends for many years and shared a house when they worked in the same area of England, my sister took on part of the responsibility of sorting out her friend's possessions in readiness for the family to dispose of the house. What she didn't expect to find was that things in the home which had been of great personal significance were largely worthless in anybody else's eyes and it seemed like a lifetime spent gathering bits and pieces had only brought value to the one who owned them. And then only fleetingly. Such was the apathy of others towards second hand items that an almost new cooker couldn't even be offloaded for more than thirty pounds and as for clothes, well they were really only of interest to charity shops and the like.It may seem slightly morbid and I may have commented on this before, but staring into a coffin makes you realise that no matter what possessions we have on earth, everything is left behind. So why do we do it? I know that I'm a great hoarder, probably like most people and I do have a bit of a reluctance about throwing junk out, even down to the spare screws that might come with a piece of self build furniture. The other day, an engineer fitted some new computer equipment in school and when I was clearing out the boxes he had left behind, I found this shiny, new metal bracket complete with fittings, that would be absolutely of no use, unless you were the owner of the kind of equipment he had installed. Still, it looked interesting enough for me to set it on a shelf in my room, a place form where I will probably have to move it again in a few year from now. I also have two obsolete computers in the attic along with a chest of drawers that I had to partially dismantle to get it up there. Also a couple of old bookcases sit alongside it and several suitcases that will never get another holiday. And there are ornaments, pictures and toys that the boys had many years ago plus a multitude of old VHS video tapes going back before the original Live Aid concert in 1985. I have half threatened to put the best ones on to DVD but what about when that format becomes obsolete. Anyway, the only person who is really interested in them is yours truly and when I'm gone, somebody will come along and light a big fire with the things that I thought were worth keeping.
And don't tell me that you don't have certain possessions on which you place great importance, for I think we all have such items, either relics from our past or present days things, expensive or very cheap, big or small, old or new, but they're still important to us. I suppose my computer, ipod and mobile would be near the top of my list, though I wonder how I survived for forty years without any of them, for my quality of life wasn't any less rich. And I do like to have a guitar around, while a pair of glasses are a possession that has become more of a necessity than desirable. But I have seen the time when a football or a rugby ball, a record player, a cassette tape or a poster of Liverpool FC would have been essential possessions. How times change, but maybe it at least makes you reminisce?
Of course there is nothing wrong with having nice things. Indeed, the writer of Ecclesiastes writes, ' when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work—this is a gift of God', but Jesus crystallised it for me when He said 'a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.' The apostles of the early church, set us a good example to follow, for 'no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.' And isn't that important as believers to realise that it's not what possessions we have but what we actually do with them for the benefit of others. Yet for some, it's those very possessions that keep us away from God. The young man who had kept all the commandments found it hard to take when Jesus told him to sell what he had and give to those in need. Matthew records that 'he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.'
Like I say, looking at what remains of a loved one who has passed beyond this life, focuses the mind on what we leave behind, but it also reminds me that the greatest possession we can have, of eternal life with God, is ours to keep for ever.
