In "7," Jen Hatmaker and her family gave away 7 possessions a day, for a grand total of 210 possessions. Michelle and I have decided to mold this a bit to better fit our life. We're going through our house room by room and looking at each individual piece of "stuff" we've accumulated over the years and asking ourselves how necessary it is. This sounds easy, but believe us it has proven to be much more of a task than either of us had anticipated. And here's what's most interesting: the hard part is not deciding which possessions to give away, but forming intentional relationships with people whose need is greater than one's own. Jen Hatmaker pointed out that anyone can load up old clothes into garbage bags and drop them off at the local Goodwill. Initiating relationships and seeking out real needs - that's the awkward, uncomfortable, and very necessary part.
So far we've managed to go through all of our DVDs and our clothes. If you know me, you know that I've always loved movies. In college I had an extensive DVD collection...that always ended up getting sold to Hastings (I still mourn that the local Memphis one closed down in December) because I needed to buy gas or food. But I would inevitably end up replenishing it as soon as I had enough disposable income to do so. More on clothes later.
Michelle and I lie to ourselves about our possessions. We tell ourselves that we don't own a 72" flatscreen plasma TV, a 2013 red sports car, a three-story house, a boat, a beach condo, or the like. We lie and say that since we don't own these things, we don't have much. We are not wealthy, we are not well off or rich. This is an American Dream fallacy of the highest order. We have learned that the single greatest disadvantage of wealth is that wealthy people do not believe they are wealthy. "We don't have as much as they do," we say.
But when we read about Jesus' dialogue with the rich young man (Mark 10:17-31, Matthew 19:16-30) we saw ourselves in it. Jesus tells the rich young man to sell all of his possessions, and that the young man, "...went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions." (ESV) The Greek word translated as "great" is "polys." It means, "many, much, large." (Blue Letter Bible. < http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G4183&t=KJV >)
The number of the possessions is not the issue. The issue is how much value one has invested in them. I absolutely love my iPod. I would not know what to do without it. Because of that, it is a "great" possession. What are your "great possessions?" What, if you were asked to give it away, would make you "walk away sorrowful?"
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