A Collector’s Item?

by Jonathan Spurlock
(Holts Summit, MO)

Hard to believe, but I may have a collector’s item! In my own house!

Now, before you start sending me “Can I see it?” types of emails, maybe I should explain just what this “collector’s item” really is. Really, it wasn’t that much of a collectible, even from a couple of years ago. It’s only recently achieved that “status”, you might say.

The item, believe it or not, is Tender Leaf Tea! Now, this tea had been around for a long, long time—I can even recall as a youngster drinking my share of hot tea (Tender Leaf, of course) for breakfast. Mom would even be sure to have a small teapot and toast waiting for me each morning for breakfast. Oh, those were the good old days!

But I had gone without my favorite tea for a long time and just about jumped for joy when I saw a good amount of Tender Leaf at a certain grocery store in eastern Kentucky. I bought one box but, as it turned out, I should have bought a truckload!

Why, you ask? It seems the whole brand has been discontinued. I can’t even find it on any of the online “look-and-pay” services. So in just a few months (July to December), the tea of my youth has now become the tea of my memory. It just isn’t available anymore.

Now I have to decide what to do with the half-box or so I have remaining. Should I use it, but only on special occasions? Or just go ahead and use it, enjoying what I have (or had)? Maybe I could indeed put some of my tea bags up for sale on an online site? Or an auction?

As silly as some of this may sound, there are folks constantly looking for collector’s items. You name it: trains, statues, firearms, lamps, coins, maybe clothes or shoes-especially, designer labels? You know they do! The rarer the better.

Or is it?

What did our Lord say about “things”? Didn’t He say, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal (Matthew 6:19-20)” And didn’t Paul tell us, “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth (Col 3:2).” Sure, they did. They know, and it’s always true, that our Lord promised to meet our daily needs.

But nowhere are we promised or guaranteed to receive or preserve the goodies or “collector’s items” that we sometimes have a craving for. True enough, some of our possessions can and do, make our lives better. Yet nothing will ever be better than using what we have in order to honor our Lord Jesus Christ.

We’ll leave everything behind someday—including our collector’s items—but what we did for Christ will last forever.

And that’s even better than a collector’s item!

Scripture quotations are taken from the NASB. http://www.lockman.org