[542 words]
There is “a time to get, and a time to lose” (Ecc. 3:6). Suffering loss is a part of living. We lose money. We lose health. We lose friends. We lose loved ones. We lose our happiness. Life is a constant cycle of ups and downs, gains and losses. Circumstances beyond our control can take away what is dear to us in a moment. People can rob us of our possessions and our peace of mind. Even our own bad choices can deprive us of the kind of life we want. Few things in life stay the same for very long.
How do you take losing something you treasure? The Christians in the book of Hebrews had their property taken from them. Yet the writer says they “took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance” (Heb. 10:34). They surely didn’t put a sign on their door saying, “Go in, steal what you want, and that will make us happy.” They were not happy because people took what they owned; they were joyful in spite of this fact. They realized more than ever that happiness does not come from things. More importantly, they remembered that they would eventually leave all their possessions behind and inherit far greater treasures in heaven.
Job lost his possessions and his ten children. That kind of loss would cause some people to lose their faith, but not Job. His attitude was “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). Job was mistaken about who was responsible for his affliction. It was Satan and not God who did these things to him. But at least at this point in the story he took his suffering well.
Alexander Campbell believed, as Abraham Lincoln also suggested, that the Civil War was God’s punishment on America. Campbell said that no people have ever enjoyed peace and prosperity long without becoming ungrateful and prideful. As a result, he argued, “Our heavenly Father is constrained to lay his hand upon his person, his family, or his estate; and by a series of difficulties, embarrassments, afflictions—personal or social—awaken and arouse him, compel him, indeed, to think, to ponder his paths, and thus to reform, change his course of life, and become sober-minded.” Campbell was humbly speaking from his own experience when he talked about losing what we have. When he wrote these words in 1861, he had buried his first wife Margaret and ten of his fourteen children.
It is a shame that we don’t appreciate what we have until we lose it. We don’t appreciate our health until we start having illness. We don’t appreciate our freedom until we’re on the verge of losing it. We don’t appreciate our friends and loved ones until they’re gone. But this doesn’t have to happen. You can decide to be thankful today. “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thess. 5:18). Life can take away what we treasure.
Death will take away all our earthly attachments. Why should this bother us as long as we gain heaven?
Kerry Duke
West End Church of Christ
Livingston, TN