What's Really in That Storage Unit Box? Not Always a Treasure!

     In pursuit of a different kind of treasure last week end, we decided to take a few days off and enjoy the cooler weather on the West coast. Passing through a beach community we stumbled upon a large swap meet and decided to stop. And off we went, ready to hunt for the treasure we normally pursue!

Like these rhinestone, faux pearls and beautiful bead work, Haskell/Hagler style vintage earrings!

     We wandered up and down the rows, stopping to look at the vintage, and not so vintage offerings of the vendors. While I lingered over a table of costume jewelry, my husband pressed on- and found a celebrity, of the treasure hunting sort! He hurried back, and guided me through the tables to stand before one of the key players in a reality show based on the purchase of storage unit contents. Of course he was easy to recognize with his name written in huge letters on the side of the truck parked behind his space.

     Now, if you watch this reality show, perhaps you've been led to believe that most every locker these guys purchase is full of amazing treasures. The kind of things a special appraiser has to look at, and then values at a price much higher than the buyer paid for the entire unit. However, this is not necessarily so...

     A patchwork of tarps in front of the celebrity and his truck told a different story. There on the ground were piles of mismatched, broken, unwanted items - the real contents of storage units not shown during the television show.

     It seems that though some units do yield treasure -safes full of jewelry or coins - many are also filled with boxes of junk that people won't  throw away. And so they drag it around... and store it... paying a price to keep hold of what they just can't let go of...

     It's amazing, until we consider our own lives. Someone hurts us, and we stuff it in a box, refusing to deal with the person or the pain, until it grows into a hard and unforgiving attitude. Over time, bitterness sets in and we are hauling a box of trash around with us wherever we go. And do we ever pay a price for storing it! Many health problems can be directly linked to how we handle the stress of  anger, and inability to forgive.

     Sooner or later, that box of trash surfaces, just like the ones in the storage units. It's opened, and where treasure is what's hoped for, junk spills out everywhere.

     Jesus stated it like this, " Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man."

     The very things that we have boxed up and stored in our heart - eventually will spill out of our mouths. The anger, the bitterness...laid out like the mess on the tarps, so that everyone sees the truth about what was inside - even though we've tried to act like only treasure was stored there!

     We choose what to keep...what gets stored in our hearts. If we fill it to the top with the treasure of His Word, there won't be any room for those boxes of junk...