This morning my wife went for a walk. When she returned, she commented on how many garage sales were happening in our neighbourhood.

I casually asked her if she saw anything she wanted and she quickly responded with, “Look around! We could have five garage sales with all the stuff we have here! What do we need with more?!”

That statement stuck with me. I don’t usually think we have a lot. In fact, compared to other people, we don’t have that much. … But that’s the problem right there!

That’s why there are so many garage sales. That’s why most homes in North America could have a garage sale every week.

We compare. And when we compare, we often compare with those who have more, not less.

So compared to the guy down the street, I don’t have all that he has … so yes, I do need a riding lawnmower.

However, if we didn’t compare ourselves to others, if we just evaluated our own situations in terms of what we needed, we probably wouldn’t be checking out garage sales – we would be hosting them.

Most of us collect things. We need storage bins and closets and lockers and garages to house all the stuff we collect. Many people can’t park their car(s) in their garages because they’re too full of their things.

They might not use those things any more, but they have them just in case.

When I was growing up, we didn’t have a garage. In winter we would have to brush the snow off the car and scrape the windows. Since I’ve been a homeowner, we’ve had garages and I have been determined to use those garages for my cars.

That alone has kept us from collecting a few things we didn’t need. When in doubt, we’ve always asked, “Where would we put that?”, and the garage is always off limits.

Self Storage in the U.S. is a six billion dollar business, and we’ve all seen the kinds of useless junk that people put in them from shows like “Storage Wars” and “Auction Hunters”.

There is another factor that adds to this problem and it’s that we don’t just want more, we want new. We compare what we have with the latest styles or colours or trends. We feel we need to update our stuff.

We just put the old into storage – like my tie collection … Who knows? Maybe my fat, colourful Fred Flintstone tie will come back into fashion … Was it ever in fashion?

So we go to garage sales and we have garage sales because, when we compare, we need more and the old stuff we have needs to be replaced with the latest stuff.

Who’s in control here? Certainly not us.

… Maybe we need to make a trip to Bibles for Missions with a load or two of stuff.

Here’s the thing: When we compare, we usually compare against something better or new and we always come out on the losing end, causing us to want more or feel we need to update. Spiritually, we compare ourselves against the Bible, against God’s standards. And unlike the comparisons we do in our society where the targets are always changing, God’s standard stays the same. So stick to God’s standard, and you won’t collect excess baggage or be mesmerized by the trends.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How much stuff could you contribute to a garage sale or a store like Bibles for Missions? Leave your comment below.