When I was in middle school I had an obsession…sports cards.
Specifically, baseball and football cards with a few basketball added in as well. I have no idea how many hours I devoted to going through my hundreds of cards. I would arrange them by player positions, then when I grew bored of that, I would arrange them by teams, then by monetary value of the card, or by the cards importance to me.
Most nights, during my pre-teen years, you would find me in my bedroom, sitting on the bed, surrounded by sports players encapsulated onto small cardboard boxes no bigger than a business card. Their pictures on the front, striking a pose or playing the game they loved, while on the back their statistics were listed…numbers I would commit to memory with ease. Any money I earned mowing lawns or doing house chores was all invested into my card collection.
It wasn’t long into my sixth grade year that I found friends at school that shared my love for sports cards. There were four or five of us guys that while riding the bus to school would crowd into small, green leather seats and pass our worn out binders that held our cards, to each other. We would each thumb through the plastic pages (holding nine cards front and back) with wide eyes and crooked grins. In that 30-45 minutes on the bus, acts of business (at least in our eyes) were being performed. If my friend had a card I just had to have, then I would trade him one of mine for it…sometimes I would even trade him multiple cards if I wanted his bad enough. There were times we’d pay each other for cards, or in really desperate occasions we’d arm wrestle for them. Yep, we were hard core when it came to the transactions of our cards.
Other kids on the bus would look at us like we were crazy. A few of them would shake their heads and whisper “nerds” under their breath. I didn’t care. I loved the rush of trading cards with my friends. I loved thinking about how much money they were worth and how much more they would be worth in the future. But most of all, I loved how having them made me feel important and part of a group. I loved that every day, when I stepped on that bus, someone was looking for me. I mean, whether we’re kids are adults, we all on some level crave that kind of acceptance at some point, don’t we?
But were the cards or even those experiences really giving me purpose?
Of course not. In fact, they were distracting me from a very important truth…and that was that things like sports cards, money, video games, and movies…were not the kinds of things that could ever bring my life purposeful abundance. They were great “imitators” of importance…but that’s all they were.
Now, as a grown man, I’m finding the same truth. No house, car, amounts of money, or fancy clothes will ever bring satisfaction to my life. These things are camouflaged as necessary and vital, a way of showing the world just how great and significant we are, without realizing the dangers they impose to our hearts and quality of our lives.
“The thief approaches with malicious intent, looking to steal, slaughter, and destroy; I came to give life with joy and abundance.”
John 10:10 (VOICE)
The truth is the “things” we accumulate and earn in our life are temporary pleasures. We would be foolish to think that our purpose and joy is found in them. They’re not. Jesus offers a joy and abundance the world can’t. A spiritual vastness that goes beyond the very temporary boundaries of this world. While technically, there’s nothing wrong with having a lot of stuff, these are not the things Jesus is talking about in the book of John. Instead, He’s offering a life for us that has meaning and purpose.
Why?
Because God knows that at the end of our lives, we will be far more concerned with how we made a difference in this world, then of the things we managed to accrue in it.
The riches of Jesus ARE NOT found in the feelings we experience when the word claps us on the back and tells us we’re somehow important.
The riches of Jesus ARE found, in the purpose we fulfill by bending down and washing another’s feet in His name.
Don’t take my word for it…try it for yourself. You'll see what I mean.
