What on Earth can we Keep? - Reflection on Job 1:21

This week, after the events of Hurricane Harvey on Houston(the Hx3 disaster), I took the time to help those with flooded apartments around my area to throw away what was no longer good or useful. Many of the apartments had a multitude of items that seemed overwhelming to me at first glance. They had collections of movies, books, dolls, and other trinkets that filled their place to the brim. The apartments did not look livable, even before the flood, from all the stuff that made it impossible to move throughout. How could a collection of things fill a place to the point where one could barely walk? Does a person realize what a mess they live in? Through this time, God reminded me of Job 1:21. It reads:

"Naked I came from my mother's womb,

and naked I will depart. 

The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, 

may the name of the Lord be praised." (NIV)

Job had everything he could've needed and, in a matter of a day, he lost it all.  Though, instead of cursing God, he made the statement above. He understood that what we have on Earth is temporary and we cannot take it with us. As my friend put it bluntly, "You don't see a U-Haul dragged by a Hearse." All I saw in what i threw away was possessions that people collected and desperately wanted to hold on too. In the end, they lost it all. They were not able to take it with them...

Jesus said in Luke 12:33-34:

Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

If we seek to fill our life with material possessions, it can be taken away from us in a matter of a heartbeat.  Seek instead to put your treasure in heavenly things, because in the end, it cannot be destroyed or removed. It will be unbreakable and everlasting.  It will give you joy that will not depart from you and a smile that will be there through the tough times. So I pray that this disaster will help people rethink their priorities. That material things are just that, material. That they can be lost and destroyed. But instead, that people will focus on the immaterial, the things that cannot be taken away, stolen, or destroyed. Happiness cannot be bought in what we own.