Gregory was a church father from the sixth century. He said: “You can tell how much you love something by the degree of sorrow you experience when you lose it.”*

I think that’s a helpful piece of perspective. If I buy a new expensive watch, and if I am so utterly devastated when I lose it that I am inconsolable and can’t function properly for the rest of the week, I am clearly too focused on material things.

But this is about more than a watch. How would you respond if you no longer had nice clothes to wear? Or the latest iPhone? How would you respond if you lost some friends because you made decisions that Jesus would like (but your friends wouldn’t)?

Fred Craddock’s uncle adopted a dog from a race track. That’s where dogs run around a track chasing a fake rabbit. The dog was no longer useful to them. Why? He simply stopped running. 

It’s hard to be sure why. After all, we can’t talk with dogs. But Craddock had an idea. Perhaps one day the dog woke up and said, ‘one day I realized that the rabbit I was chasing wasn’t real.’**

This story, of course, isn’t really about dogs. It’s about us.

What if we stopped chasing? What if we spent less time thinking about stuff and more time thinking about how to bless people? What if we run after things like grace and forgiveness and holiness and wisdom, instead of whatever drags us into the gutter of lesser pursuits?

I’ll be honest. I’d be pretty upset if I lost some of my things. I have work to do! But whenever I find myself simplifying my life, living by faith, and seeking the well-being of others, I feel deep-down good.

Perhaps the same might be true for you.

Jesus said: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven…” (Matthew 6:19-20)

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Notes:

-*Quoted in: Walter Hilton, ed. Halcyon Backhouse, The Scale of Perfection (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1992), 118. 
-** Tony Campolo, Stories That Feed Your Soul (California: Regal Light, 2010), 164.

-Bible quotes are from the NIV.