I recently saw one of those clickbait articles.
It was “10 Worst Lego Sets of All Time!” As I scrolled through it, I realised that I had two of them when I was a kid. I was never the kid with the big cool Lego sets, but I didn’t think I minded…until my little brother got into lego.
One year, my brother—who is significantly younger than I am—got the big one, the most coveted Lego set of my generation. He got the Lego X-Wing. Now, you may presume that I was jealous, but I wasn’t, in all honesty. Because I knew the big brother secret: I’d get to play with it, too. I’d pull the brother-card and con him into letting me “just see it” and then disappear for a while with all its Lego glory.
But I was thwarted again.
You see, my brother is a creative genius. So he built the X-Wing. And then just about as quickly as he built it, he dismantled it to create something else.
I was furious.
This little brat didn’t even know how good he had it, and he just trashed the thing?! He probably didn’t notice but I was very passive-aggressive with him for the next few weeks.
My desire for that Lego set—that wasn’t even mine—broke my relationship with my brother.
In big and small ways, I’d wager we’ve all had a similar moment. Where our desire for, or protection of, something that we feel is ours gets in the way of our relationships with people in our lives. And if we’re honest, these same things probably affect our relationship with God more than we’d like to admit.
There are countless stories and teachings in the Bible about living in simplicity and not allowing material things to dictate our lives. But I think there’s no story more poignant than the story of the Rich Young Man in Matthew 19.
The young man comes to Jesus to ask how to inherit eternal life. And through the discourse, Jesus comes to telling him to sell everything and to give the money to the poor. Jesus points to the thing that likely controlled his life more than he’d like to admit, and this young man couldn’t let it go to follow Jesus.
The truth is that it’s not actually about the young man’s stuff. It’s about the position of his heart.
He was unable to let go of his “things” in order to follow Jesus.
What are the things in your life that might challenge you in your relationship with Jesus? What comes to mind when you think, “If Jesus asked me to get rid of (blank), could I?”
As we walk through the season of Lent, part of the fasting is to pursue simplicity in order to follow Jesus more closely. Is there something that you could do with less of, so that you could give more to Jesus in your life? Is there something you could let go of for the sake of your relationship with the people around you?
And if it’s a Lego X-Wing, I get it—it’s a tough thing to do. But I’d also tell you that letting it go, for the sake of your relationships, will be far better and bring more joy than the X-Wing ever could.
Author Bio
Owen Scott co-pastors the Dauphin campus of
Prairie Alliance Church with his wife Amanda. They have 3 kids, a cat, and a moderately neurotic dog. Owen enjoys playing card games, spending time with his family in our beautiful national park, and getting said neurotic dog to pull a sled in the winter.