I’m a hoarder

I’m a hoarder.  Not the type that has junk piled sky high all over the house and yard, but the kind that hoards mentally.  I always have in the back of my mind that there has to be enough of everything for me. I’ll share, but I want enough for me. 

I see myself as a child in a shopping cart and Mother is putting the groceries in the cart until I’m buried underneath it all. Instead of looking to Mother to provide what I need, I look at the stuff on top of me and attempt to put my arms around all of it.  Every once in a while Mother takes things out and I panic, because, don’t you know, it’s my stuff! 

Now I have two ways I can handle this mental hoarding. I can continue to hoard and worry and ultimately have access to only that which I hoard.  Or I can stop hoarding, open my hands and my heart and freely give without worrying about what’s “mine”. In that freedom I will have access to all of God’s riches, spiritual and temporal. 

It really doesn’t seem like a hard choice, but because of my weakness and my little faith it does become a hard choice and ultimately a heavy burden to bear. So every once in a while I have to slap myself upside the head and give everything I think I own back to the Lord and stop asking for more stuff to hoard.

I love the song:  Shopping List by Lesa and Larry Bryant. It’s a silly song about hoarding and treating God as a Santa Claus or a Magic Lamp to rub. Part of the song goes like this: 

“Give me this, I want that, Bless me Lord I pray, Grant me what I think I need to make it through the day.  Make me wealthy, keep me healthy, fill in what I missed on my never-ending shopping list.

“Lord you’ve been so good to me, how could I ask for more, but since you said to ask, I will, cause what else is prayer for?  The cattle on a thousand hills they all belong to you. I don’t need any cows right now, but something else might do.”