Hello friends,
I’m looking for things to slow down a bit this week. We’ll see how that goes. We’ve begun moving the rest of the important things from the ranch to our place at Lake George. With Mom’s passing, the ranch will be sold, so we’re beginning the process. I suppose I should have feelings of sadness over the pending sale, after all the place has been in the family since 1910. I can truthfully say I’m not sad. As a couple, Milrae and I lived there 38 years, and raised our two boys there. It was a good life and ranching was good to us. We have to look at this, not as the end of something, but the beginning of a new chapter in our lives. We will move on from here.
Scripture has much to say about the temporary nature of life and possessions. Over the years, as I have read and studied the Bible, I have come to understand that our possessions are on loan from the Lord, and he has the authority to both give them and take them away.
In the Old Testament, a man named Job lost everything near and dear to him, yet he said, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised” (Job 1:21).
Jesus said, “a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). The apostle Paul wrote, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation…I can do everything through him who give me strength” (Philippians 4:11-13).
The apostle James, speaking to those who made “big plans” for the future, said, “Why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while then vanishes.”
To Timothy, Paul wrote, “For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that” (2 Timothy 6:6-7). Corrie Ten Boom, who survived the Holocaust said, “Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open.”
I think it helps to remember the words of the old song… “This world is not my home, I’m just a’ passing through.”
In His care,
Pastor Jerry
sandhillspastor 