The Fishers in La Paz, Bolivia

I wrote a little about this earlier, but after spending over a week dealing with our possessions (meaning selling, storing, giving away & throwing away), I feel like writing again. As we were working round-the-clock to get out of our house and spending hours deciding what to do with each thing we own (will an ice cream scoop be helpful in Bolivia ?!?), I kept thinking of this passage when Jesus sent out the twelve disciples to minister in the villages:

Mark 6:8-9 – “These were his instructions: Take nothing for the journey except a staff – no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. . .”

We are certainly not following this literally. We will be taking plenty of things to Bolivia with us, but these verses suddenly had meaning to me when before I had just skimmed over them. I believe God wants us to enjoy and use wisely the possessions He has allowed us to have, they are not bad in and of themselves. But Jesus knew  that things have to be cared for and can divert attention from Him and from His work and relationships among His people. The second, perhaps obvious, application that hit me from this passage was just how much you have to rely on God to take care of you when you don’t bring along food, money, clothes or baggage on your journey. Jesus was forcing the disciples to let go of their self-sufficiency and rely totally on Him to provide what was needed to live and work for Him.

I feel very free since we have let go of many possessions, but we still have an excess of many things. I hope that we will learn a lesson from this time to think more carefully in the future about the difference between what we need and want.