I am a physical hoarder. I keep stuff that others would throw away and I have plenty of evidence for doing so. So did my dad and my father in law. Missionaries tend to be hoarders, as well as the previous generation hoarded cast off parts during the Great Depression and afterwards.

Through these three generations, we all had to build things from parts around the farm. Furniture from castoff broken pieces, a patch in a quilt, a tear in the knees of work jeans. I have boxes of stuff I store in the garage to fix other stuff in our house. Now it's more computer parts than patches, but both my kids and I keep things and recycle them. For water in emergencies, we have a collection of plastic drink jugs from Walmart, cleaned out and with a tablespoon of lemon juice, filled with water and stored on shelves in the garage. We've stored things like rice, beans, canned goods, even powdered milk against emergencies.

I used to build architectural models and used bits of clear plastic from store blister packs to make windows for my buildings. Hunks of plywood for my trainsets. One never knows the advantage of having parts of old things, to repair or build newer items.

One thing I can't hoard is spiritual junk. All that I need, God has in abundance, but I have nothing which is of use to me today or tomorrow. He supplies what I need for a day. Every day! Each morning, as I write these missives, I pray for the wisdom to build helpful expamples for that day, this day, and tomorrow. I am dependent, completely, on God to supply the words and the attitudes for this day's needs to build life from the gifts of the Spirit. I carry a backpack of survival goodies in my car in case of emergency....that backpack does me no good at all at 6:15 am, when I am thinking of what God intends to tell me.

Lord, forgive us for storing up leftover attitudes and junk for use to build the Kingdom. We let go of each today to let You work through us!