Who's minding the store?

Crystal felt the hot tear streaming down her face. The pantry that at one time held a vast assortment of food now stood desolate. But that wasn’t the reason for the tears. On the top shelf several rows of canned figs stood silently, displayed through the clear quart jars. They were dusty with spots of mold that told their age by the decay.

Mom couldn’t stand to see the figs waste. She grew up poor and the figs represented something special she could offer on her biscuits. She always thought to keep things on-hand for others, or for special occasions. Even if it was just biscuits and fig preserves, she always considered keeping something for tomorrow.

In heaven God also has things stored. Vials of prayers he turns to when he wants to smell the aroma of His saints reaching for Him. Monuments that stand before him as reminders of lives who need Him, placed where He can remember them and their needs.

We’re supposed to be storing treasures, spiritual things that reap life, returning to us by the law of sowing and reaping.

Our giving has always been investments. Like bread cast upon the waters, we expect it to return not many days hence. We are seeing the passing of a generation like Crystal’s Mom. People who built for tomorrow, storing away for the lean times and a day that the extra they have now would be part of tomorrow’s provision.

God gives us ample opportunity to store away for tomorrow, challenges to store away good things when our lives are simple and answers easy. Each test is a chance to react in love; doing good to them that hate us, serving, forgiving, and even agreeing with our adversaries while we are in the way with them. To store committed prayers, praise that is forced to Him when we don’t feel the inclination, all that we might need later for our loved ones when we need to believe God for a miracle.

But we’re not minding the store.

Peter bragged that he would protect Jesus. Jesus rebuked him and said; “thou savourest not the things of God,” or loosely translated, you’re not minding the things that matter to God.

Every day we could be building stores for the coming hours of temptation. Yet, we grapple with our ego and curse the way that others take because it offends our thinking. But have you ever thought that maybe God is giving us opportunities to store forgiveness and mercy for the dark hour we are yet to face?

But someone must mind the store.

R.A. Perry