Treasures to Trash

09.09.11

Lamentations 1.11 All her people groan as they search for bread; they barter their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. “Look, LORD, and consider, for I am despised.” NIV

Treasures become trash when they pass from want to need, and when need turns to desperation. Many are the college students who need money and pawn precious things for a few bucks and somehow the money to buy it back never comes. Treasures are collected when times are good or when someone passes or because of some windfall. Treasures may be precious because of who owned them before or how much was paid in cash or effort to get them. But oh, what chattel they turn into when times get desperate.

The other side of the coin is what baggage they turn into in times of crisis or seasons of growth and maturity. Paul the apostle said, “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.” (Philippians 3.7-9 NIV) In these times bartering away turns into running away from anchors that drag on the soul or chains that bind on the mind. Paul said, “What good are these things I once thought were so good that only got in the way of my coming to know Christ!?”

In Lamentations, they bartered away their treasures desperately hoping that someone else in the same mess as they would be able to give them the food they needed to survive; you can’t eat treasures. Treasures are somewhat fleeting and their value is often fickle when the pain gets to be too much. If things are bad enough treasures indeed become trash; their sentimentality becomes weak, and they end up being used for some other ignoble purpose.

I tend to go here lately: treasures become trash in order for trash to become treasures. Paul, huh? What I mean is the truest treasure is that which is trash to the world – things like faith, honor, valor, fidelity; and just for good measure, I’m gonna through in virginity. (What is precious to God is usually worthless to most and for the last forty years or more virginity has been taking a cultural beating.) The true assessment of treasure is what it's worth in heaven.

Jesus said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matt. 6.19-21 NIV)

Bartered treasure only means something if it’s worth something. One man’s treasure is another man’s trash when the going gets tough enough. But what may be trash to men is treasure to God when our hearts are in the right place: on Him and not the trinkets of this world.