The Box

It was just a box sitting on the table filled with odds and ends of stuff haphazardly thrown in.  It had been sitting like that for some time because of the accumulation of dust and dirt along with the miscellaneous items.  I was told it was a box of junk, just garbage.  But I had to take a quick look anyway.  Mmmm.  Isn’t that a roll of ribbon that’s never been unwrapped?  I didn’t dig too deep but would have loved to scrounge through and see what other treasures were hiding in there.

Later that day I was still thinking about that box during my quiet time and wondering why I was still dwelling on it.  Then it hit me.   That box filled with all those odd and ends, dirty and dusty, was a representation of our lives.  Can you picture the stuff of your life in that box?  I can picture mine.  It’s got thoughts, relationships, material possessions, words, prejudices, attitudes, all sorts of stuff all piled in there and it isn’t all clean and well organized.  I think what was bugging me the most was the attitude toward that box.  Some people looked at the stuff as junk.  I saw treasures.

What do people see when they look in the “box” of our lives?  Do they glance in there and say, “Oh, it’s just a bunch of junk, nothing worth anything in there”?  Or do they take the time to dig deeper and see if there’s any treasures in there?  The hardest question is what is my attitude toward your “box”?  I am ashamed to think that I have looked at your life and not given it a second thought, just walked on by.  I may have took the time to dig a little deeper, even found a treasure or two but still didn’t value what was truly there.
There is only one person that will dig deep into the “box” of our lives and find the treasure hidden there.  He already knows what in there and he doesn’t care how dirty or messy it is.  1 Peter 1:3-4 speaks of God’s great mercy.  He’s given us new birth into a living hope because of Christ’s resurrection from the dead, and given us an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.  When Jesus gets through going through our lives this is God’s promise to us.  We aren’t junk or garbage.  We are the treasure that Christ died for and belonging to him is all we need.

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