Cardboard, Books and Fine China: Hoarding and Blessing
This month marks four years since we moved into our home after relocating from 
Boulder. Yet my garage is still outlined with many of the same boxes that were deposited there on moving day.
Every few months, I muster my efforts and resolve anew to unpack the belongings they contain. I ‘assess the situation’ and ‘plan my attack’ but ultimately make progress no more significant than swapping one box’s position along the periphery for another. Many of our books are entombed in cardboard, as are the china place settings from our wedding all those years ago.
My Bible study this week zeroed in on the idea of wealth. And, more importantly, the handling of it.
Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days.
— James 5:3 NIV
Relative to the world population’s income, having enough financial resources to own a single book makes a person wealthy. I own six Bibles, never mind the shelves burgeoning with other books, and boxes more in the garage. They seem so benign, these collections of wit and wisdom on paper; certainly not the stuff of flagrant wealth. Or so I thought.
The cardboard boxes indicted me. I haven’t touched these books in close to five years, since they were packed away almost a year before we moved into our home. Don’t even get me started on the china. The writer of my Bible study suggested that hoarding could be defined as ‘having without using.’ The Biblical usage of the word translated ‘hoarded’ (thēsaurizō) is
to gather and lay up, to heap up, store up; to accumulate riches
to keep in store, store up, reserve
The image called to my mind is piles and piles of stuff. And it bears a striking resemblance to my box-lined garage. I’m going a step further than the writer of my Bible study. I think hoarding is ‘having something just to have it.’ Clearly, I have no need for these possessions. If I did, they would be long-unpacked.
As things of the earth, these ‘treasures’ are corroding. James says they will eat my flesh and testify against me, pointedly calling me selfish. I don’t even need to set foot in my garage to be confronted with my caches of self-preservation and self-indulgence: I need only throw open the closet door to find coats and shoes that could be put to better use than adorning my hangers and shelves.
God blessed Abram so that Abram would bless others (Genesis 12). Paul said it this way in his letter to the Corinthians:
You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
— 2 Corinthians 9:11 NIV
Instead of hoarding, God calls me to blessing. Instead of ‘having something to have it’, He urges me towards ‘having something to give it.’ Through this others will blessed with even their most basic needs. And it will result in thanksgiving to God. Herein lies the purpose in giving.
I need no better reason to roll up my sleeves and sift through my boxes than to find the blessings God intended for another to enjoy.
Take a quick look around you. I’ll wager there’s something in your line of sight right now that you haven’t used recently and could greatly benefit someone else, if only through the funds that selling it would produce. It doesn’t have to be big. Will you join me, though, in this exercise: instead of hoarding it, give it away? Share your experience in the comments.
Linked up with Beholding Glory.