YOUR TREASURE CHEST

How often have we told ourselves and others that we work hard in order to give our children everything we never had so they may have a head start in life?

And what about the over-abundance of misers who proclaim that the more they acquire, the more their sons and daughters shall inherit.

Are we building a material future for our children's sake, or a monument to our greed and pride?

Wealth does not bring contentment and is not lasting, and the miser without food would starve to death counting his money.

Henry David Thoreau reminded us that a man is wealthy in proportion to the number of things he can do without, and Henry van Dyke stated that happiness is inward and not outward; and so it does not depend on what we have, but on what we are.

G. H Larimer also wrote that it is good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven't lost the things that money can't buy.

The idea of gift giving has been with us for a long time, there are even some Christians who associate the giving of gifts at Christmas with the story of the three wise men who offered the Baby Jesus priceless gifts on the night of his birth.

It may be possible that the act of giving and the concept of providing have come into collision. Far too many of us know the price of everything and the value of nothing. We are so glutted with material luxuries that we have forgotten how to enjoy our basic necessities.

A minister friend of mine had a quick and spiteful saying each time he saw an expensive car with rich people driving down the road. "A person's character is like a fence, it cannot be strengthened by whitewash," he would sputter. And he would sometimes add, "The whitewashed fence is pretty, but the wood beneath is rotten to the core."

Do we envy that which our neighbor has, or that which we have not?

The alleged gifts that the three wise men left for Baby Jesus can in no way measure up to the gift that Jesus gave us.

They offered to him material things designed to make his young life easier, just as we do for our children.
Jesus gave us life everlasting, which we should pass on to our children. To stand before Jesus with empty hands but a full heart, is so much greater a gift than the most expensive item gold can buy.

We should indeed fill our own treasure chest to overflowing, but not with the material possessions, which will be left behind for others to flaunt and fight over. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.

Instead, our chest of treasure should be filled with love and compassion, charity and forgiveness, and, Oh so many smiles!

A smile is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and an antidote for trouble.

And laughter, for laughter is the song of heavenly bliss.

The greatest gift you can offer Baby Jesus, and everyone else, on His Birthday this Christmas, is the gift of love.

Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but be a new and different person with a fresh newness in all you do and think.

Fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely, and dwell on the fine good things in others.