Small Gods ~ That is Just for Show

Greetings Dear Reader,

Most of you are too young to recall clear vinal slipcovers.  I wrote about them at length in 2019 before COVID and containment.  Still, it bears a little review that one of our larger small gods is our possessions.

We gather things to us that we think will bring us satisfaction or peace.  The acquisition of things is a battle I constantly fight.  Even though I have diminished my possessions greatly, I still have too much.  I have discovered that possessions as small gods take on two forms.

 The first is worshiping obtaining things.  It is not wrong to have a collection of something you like.  My Grandmother had a beautiful collection of porcelain horses.  Even though they were her prized possessions, she let me play with them whenever I wished.  I used to have collections that no one was even allowed to touch.  It was a small god to me.  When I realized this, I gave the collection to my Grandsons as toys.  For me, it was obtaining that I worshiped.

The other side of the possessions coin is when we obtain and isolate.  We acquire things to put them away and admire them.  Again, it is not wrong to have things that are pretty or important to us.  Mementos and keepsakes have their place.  It is when those things are more important to us than our faith and following that we have an issue.  No matter what our obsession, it replaces our focus on fealty to Christ and that is a form of idol worship. 

I mentioned clear vinal slipcovers.   My Nana had a couch that was covered in clear vinyl to protect the comfortable upholstery underneath.  No matter how pretty that couch was, it never served its purpose as a comfortable place to sit.  There were even strict rules regarding protecting the vinal covers.  It was clear that the couch was much more important to her than I was.

The entire idea of things as our small gods is idol worship that infects our culture.  We have so much that there is an entire industry around paying for places to store the stuff that will not fit in our homes.  We pay for extra space so we can keep our things.  I realize that there are some things that need storage.  I stand by my conclusion that most of us have too much.

With possessions as one of our small gods, it is difficult to follow.  They become burdens that we try to carry and loads that we cannot bear.  Just pondering it makes me wish to have less so that I can follow Christ more freely.  I do not wish to love things.  I would rather invest my time and resources in loving others including you, Dear Reader.

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn
Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a homeowner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”
(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Every human story is part of the great story that leads to the Father getting everything back to Good.

Contacts for Aramis Thorn:

#aramisthorn
Support Page on Patreon: www.patreon.com/aramisthorn
Novels: From My Publisher or on Amazon            
Web Page:  www.aramisthorn.com
Bookings: aramisthorn@aramisthorn.com
Facebook     
Twitter        
Medium         
Instagram 
BLOG Archive:  http://aramisthorn.blogspot.com/  

“Surrounding myself with possessions; I surely have more than I need…” – Dan Fogelberg