Plastic Pop Beads

God keeps slapping me in the face with Mark 8:35: "For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it."

It's been over a year now since that verse got stuck in my devotional craw. I think this means that the truth of it hasn't sunk in enough to actually change my heart; God has to keep bringing me back to it until I learn the lesson.

Today I made a list of everything that I fear this verse might mean in my life. All the things that I fear God could, is, will call me to give up for His sake. It was a depressing list. It filled me dread.

But it was also freeing. All of the best things in life are nothing compared to Christ and the surpassing worth of knowing Him. That is the truth.

Big things, little things, He wants them all. He wants all of me, my dearest treasures, my fondest hopes. He wants me to bow my knee to the truth that He is better than any of those things and by faith live out the consequences of this belief. He wants me to put my hope in Him.

I read this story today and I wanted to share. It's from a transcript of a message given at Urbana 1984 by Joanne Shetler.

"I will never forget the story of the little girl whose daddy had given her some plastic pop beads. Now they were poor but she loved her daddy. And so she loved those beads. She wore them everywhere. She wore them to church; she wore them to school; she wore them to bed. She never took her beads off. They were the thing she loved most. One day her daddy came home, and asked her for those little beads back. She was incredulous. He asked again, and she got tears in her eyes. He asked a third time, and she was torn. She couldn't understand. Why is this? She loved those beads. She loved her daddy. Finally, sobbing, she took off her beads and put them in her daddy's hand. And then, he reached into his pocket, and pulled out a string of real pearls and put them around her neck."

What is getting in the way of truly knowing Him and making Him my treasure? What are the plastic pop beads of my life? I've made a list, although, undoubtedly I'll have different priorities at different times of my life. I will constantly have to lay my treasures down.

But, amazingly, I want to. I want to show others the surpassing worth of Jesus by not making the things of this world my treasure. It's hard, of course, because everything worthwhile is costly. But it is worth it. God's Word testifies to this truth, and so do countless Christians before and beside me. And I want to be one of those who have counted it all loss, and found riches untold at the foot of Jesus.

Pearls for my pop beads.