What do you have in your luggage?

It’s a good question.

I like to pack well, always having an extra pair of pants and a spare t-shirt. I like to be prepared for the extraordinary when I am out traveling.

So, usually I have a small but well packed (full) suitcase when I am around on my travels.

At home we just had a spring clean, and I realized how much we accumulate over time. We found everything from papers and old receipts, to things that I think may be useful some day. I have a room upstairs where my tools are and a small deposit. I finally packed away the summer stuff, like my children’s outside toys and summer umbrella. I even found the Christmas tree and all the decorations.

I am amazed by how much stuff we have. Though they are only seasonal things, I can’t throw out the Christmas tree just because we only use it one out of the twelve months of the year. I suppose that would upset my wife and kids, I guess.

But I often find myself having things I think “one day it could be used”, and often that day never comes. I just collect stuff, and as I do it becomes harder and harder to get rid of it, and in the end my stuff owns me and not the other way around. I become a slave to things!

It leads to lack of freedom and my life becomes about how to take care of my things. Then after a while I get more things, and then I need a bigger house, and then I need a bigger garage, and then I need a cabin, life is unfolding that way. Or I just need storage. If I only had storage for my things, life will be so much better. Well I don’t really have storage or a garage, so what do I do with all my things?

What about sharing them? Giving them away, letting other people that may not have the same resources have them. But they are MY things, you may say. Greed has many faces and expressions, but free generosity is only refreshing. So, here is a bag of clothes, a box of small children’s toys, here are two pairs of shoes that I used just once, here are some flowers and here is a chair, and here is a phone….. Let’s be people that live out generosity- it is freeing.

In our community we have had people going for more schooling, some leaving for holiday and other different things, and I am so happy to see that cars (yes cars!) are going around from family to family to those that don’t have one. Or when staff are giving up belongings to bless someone else, I am amazed by the freedom our team have by doing this.

We as a family also experienced this going back to our hometown in Norway, without a car and just staying with my mother. A good friend from church let us use his car, this has happened every time we have been back. Generosity is something we need to cultivate in our lives, ministries and communities, it is a way of life for true leaders.

Till next time,

– be generous!