November 29, 2011
Storage Wars
I enjoy watching the reality TV show ‘Storage Wars’ where storage units
are put up for auction when the renters of the units fail to make their rent
payments. As the door to the storage unit opens to expose the treasures within,
the bidders never know what to expect. Certainly each of us has our own
standards of value and the old adage ‘one man’s trash is another man’s
treasure’ has merit. I now have this disturbing image of the Lord opening up my
heart to see the treasures within. “But store up for yourselves treasures in
heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in
and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be
also.” (Matt 6:20-21 NIV)
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2 comments:
Gail;
-----The other day my daughter, Erin, kicked out a word one of her teachers had formed by attaching “eu-” to “good“. What the teacher meant was to focus upon a specific category of the word’s connotation; it eliminated all the misunderstandings the bad elements of situations can cause to the idea of good (to a robber, it is good to not get caught, to the victim it is bad.) Naturally, Erin and I carried on, giggling and chuckling, as we made a variety of new words by prefixing “eu-” to them.
-----But one of our Frankenwords struck me as a concept for which I’ve long searched. The Bible speaks about joy, and joy’s good and nice and important and all that. But it is also the pleasant, accepting attitude we are to bring to situations such as even loosing your fingers in the garbage disposal. Knowing we are to be joyful in all circumstances just seems to leave the concept of making your neighbor joyful too open to doing whatever unto the poor soul. Now, happy is a different concept. We should go joyfully to the emergency room with our shredded fingers, but we need not be happy about it. It just isn’t something to take pleasure in. Paul tells us in Romans 15:2 to please your neighbor for his good, to edify him. Yet, making your neighbor happy envisions the unpleasant possibilities of servitude to the dastardly soul’s squalid delights. That’s no fun either. So, I’ve always needed a word for the kind of pleasure, the kind of happy, we really should make in the neighbor.
-----I’ll bet you’ve got the Frankenword figured out: euplease, eupleasure, euhappy. So, if the denotation of the prefix “eu-” is to focus the root word into the well, good, and true category of its connotations, then to euplease and make someone euhappy is to please them and make them happy with things and situations and ideas that they like which are also good for them according to the Lord’s consideration of good. Or at least according to the best you understand His consideration of good. In fact, I think the teacher’s Frankenword, “eugood”, certainly would be what the Lord considers to be good for a soul in a situation.
-----So what?
(continued...)
Love you all,
Steve Corey
(...continued)
-----So, I Corinthians 3:12-15 says, “Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” What of this present time will actually survive the fire? What will actually enter the eternal, perfect kingdom of the Lord? Our resurrected bodies will. That is as close to anything physical surviving it as the Word intimates (if you believe the world will be rejuvenated, then please bear with me; that’s a topic for another day.) Certainly our spirit survives the fire. Paul said that even if nothing built upon the foundation survives the fire, still the builder will survive it. But what then is the gold, silver, and precious stones which are refined by fire rather than being consumed in it? Could they be the eupleasures and euhappiness intertwined in the eujoys of your life? How about the euideas and euknowledge you discovered during your life? The eusense and eumemories of the eugood which made you insofar as it is truly perfect is a part of you. Why would it not survive the fire as a basic part of your untwisted soul? These are part of your treasure.
-----Just a part? What more could there be? Of course! It could be all of the eupleasures and euhappiness intertwined in the eujoys and all of the euideas and euknowledge you caused in other people as well. The more of that you cause in other folks, the more of them gets through the fire, too! And think about what they cause in the lives of yet other people. Everything eugood they cause that they would not have caused had you not caused eugood in them is kind of like jointly owned treasure.
-----These are the only things buildable upon the foundation of Christ which are enterable into His kingdom after the fire. Of course, I haven’t been there; so I can only presume all this. But I think it is a fitting presumption.
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