Inner Liberty.

Image © by Brian E. Faulkner

Came across a thought by Richard Foster this evening in his discussion of Christian simplicity.  He was discoursing about the spot in Luke 6 where the disciple is talking about not laying up one’s treasures on Earth but in heaven.  Treasures are whatever you tend to hold too close, he wrote, in relating a story about his young sons' cherished objects:

“When I looked into what these objects were, I was frequently amazed, for they may have been only some shiny stones, or an odd-looking stick, or a pile of rubber bands.  But for my children, these were coveted treasures.”

My own son had bins of small metal cars that he played with incessantly.  Now his sons play with them. I have pictures of my son and his son down at floor level gazing over rows of these colorful little objects – the same image in each case but taken thirty years apart. One of my daughters took possession of an old t-shirt of mine when she was maybe three or four and proceeded to love the thing to shreds.  She called it her Blue Daddy’s Shirt (caps intended, because this truly was a treasured object).  I don’t recall what become of that heavenly scrap of cloth.  For all I know she has it yet, secure in some private stash in Seattle, where she lives with her own child, now seven and busy secreting away his own priceless stuff. 
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We all have our hidden places and treasured things.  Bureau drawers are full of them. Up and down our streets, throughout our towns and cities and across the world: buttons and coins, commemorative pins, nubs of pencils and dried flowers; photo booth pictures and the diminutive pocket watch your mother wore around her neck when she rocked you to sleep lie in wait of memories -- small riches of every sort.  And then there are those other treasures.  They are the big things, the consequential: houses and mortgages, savings, investments, love, marriage, children, retirement, death, family and friends, identity, education, attainment, position, privilege, power, reputation, wealth and justice – or the lack of them.   They may not seem like treasures but can be the ones we grip most tenaciously because they define and rule us.  As Foster suggests, “whatever we fix as our treasure will take over our whole life.” 

It seems natural to want to hold onto our stuff, whether physical things or wishes, hopes, fears, beliefs, and attitudes.  The story is told both in Matthew and Luke of the wealthy young man who approached Jesus and asked what he must do to attain eternal life.  The Lord replied with a short list of commandments, to which the man replied, “All these things I have kept from my youth.  What do I still lack?”

That’s when Jesus lowered the boom.

“If you want to be perfect, go sell your possessions and give to the poor and then you will have treasure in heaven,” the Lord said.  The man went away sad.

He wasn’t being asked to sell all his possessions because the poor needed them (even though they do).  He was being asked to release and let fall away the thing that was most encrusting his life and to trust in Him instead.  In the case of the wealthy young man, it was money.  In my case or yours it easily could be wealth that makes us anxious … or even the absence of wealth. 

But Foster explains:  Now “that the Kingdom of God has burst upon the human scene,” we can live “scandalously free from anxiety … in a new, glorious inner liberty … knowing that all things needful will be provided.” 

Imagine placing your burdens on the Lord who promises rest for the weary and heavy laden.  Imagine discovering that those things that used to matter so much no longer matter so much.  Imagine letting go the leash of worry.  Imagine barnacles that cling falling away.  Imagine a life with infinitely greater fulfillment, a transformed life.  Because when we seek first the Kingdom of God and trust in his (divinely ordained) purposes, we can be certain that our path will be guided by Providence and that everything we require for our journey will be provided.

Now that’s exciting.  That’s freedom!

(written 4-29-16)
* Freedom of Simplicity, Richard J. Foster, Harper Collins, 1973, pp. 40-41

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