In the Christian life, smooth sailing is not always a confirmation.
It is more often a caution, a warning, a red flag.

Problem is, the caution usually goes unheeded.

Smooth sailing carries more weight than any suggestion that there is something not good about good times.

 

There is a lot that I could say to make the point, from The Book, but here I will just summarize with one comment that is not so smooth.

 

If the enemy of your soul has not attacked you lately, perhaps it is because he doesn’t need to.

I wrote the above on the lid of a wastebasket, for obvious reasons.

Fact is, overflowing trash cans are a pet peeve of mine (including when it’s my own).

 

But as I read that label a number of times, I thought of multiple meanings and valid applications for life.

 

Trash belongs somewhere—in the trash.

If we do not provide a place for trash, it creates a problem, a mess, and soon interferes with our life.

Trash cans, waste baskets, “circular files,” garbage cans, dumpsters, garbage trucks, landfills; these give a designated place to put stuff that we should not save.

If these “containers” are not emptied when they get full (or covered as landfills), the trash spills over into our lives again, or the garbage smell interferes with our quality of life.

 

Unwanted trash and smelly garbage must obviously be dealt with regularly.

But consider the above title applied to good things in life.

 

If we are blessed and full, it is vital to not just stay that way.

For life’s greatest blessings, we must give as we have received.

“Unto whom much is given, much will be required.”

 

Unfortunately, most of the time the more we get, the more we want to get, and the more we try to get.  We build bigger houses and bigger storage buildings.

 

What if we emptied ourselves when full of many good things, and emptied our homes, and gave away everything we don’t need?  Then we could even use some of the empty space for someone who doesn’t have a home.

 

And one more thought.

What if we think we are filled with all the good in the world and don’t need anything, especially advice from the previous paragraph?

We all need to first empty ourselves of everything we think is so good, so we can be filled with the good that comes from God, which we desperately need.

 

“You say, ‘I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing’; and do not know that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.  I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that you may be rich.”     —–Jesus