Today, the movers packed our furniture for our move to Georgia.

Tonight, as the moving van was pulling away, a friend and former church board member came to visit. He hugged my neck and then sat with Becky and me on the floor for an hour. We laughed, shared memories, and then he prayed for us.

While he was praying, I felt strongly that the Lord gave me a thought to share with him in prayer. Sitting there in that empty room, I knew the Holy Spirit was filling our hearts—and that room—with God’s presence.

It’s quiet now. I’m sitting alone in the basement with my MacBook, reflecting on the day. I’m full of gratitude.

So many friends have helped us prepare for this move—with muscle, food, gift cards, and, most of all, prayer. It has also been fun listening to their comments about our stuff, especially Becky’s flair for making a house a home.

I have laughed at some of the things we decided to keep. And I have been a little sad about some of the things we decided we no longer needed to hold onto.

The first piece of furniture Becky and I agreed to buy after we were married was a rolltop desk. This October, that will be fifty years ago.

I still use it every day for study, journaling, correspondence, and paying our bills. Inside the desk is a prayer list that Becky’s missionary aunt kept in her Bible. It is tear-stained. Our names are on that list. Knowing that she prayed over those names day after day still motivates me to draw close to our Lord in prayer and worship.

On top of the desk are books I use every day—my Study Bible, a Hebrew Bible, a book on prayer, and whatever book I happen to be reading at the moment.

And that brings me to books.

Do you know how difficult it is to let go of a treasured book?

Books are like old friends to me. You know a good friend when you can get together again and again and pick up where you left off. You know a good book when you return to it again and again and still find something worth remembering.

As I watched boxes being packed today, I realized that moving forces you to ask some interesting questions:

What do I really need? What do I treasure? Why does this particular thing mean so much to me? What am I keeping simply because I have always kept it? And what can I finally let go?

And then there are the cards.

Do you know how many cards I have kept? You don’t want to!

They are part of what I call my “Encouragement File.” There are prayers people wrote for me when I almost died. There are congratulatory notes, words of encouragement, and reminders of celebrations and trials that Becky and I have had the privilege of walking through with people as their friends and pastors.

How do you throw those away?

Then there is Becky’s piano.

Just a few hours ago, it was crated and loaded onto the moving truck. When our children were little, one week our family devotions were built around sounds mentioned in the Bible, including stringed instruments. We sang around that piano every night.

At the end of the week, I asked the children what their favorite sound was.

You know what they said.

“When Mother plays the piano at night after we go to bed.”

Years later, when COVID moved our Saturday Prayer Service from the sanctuary at Woodland into our home, Becky played that same piano as she led thousands of people in worship and prayer.

It’s a piano.

But it’s more than a piano to us.

The men who packed the van today treated our belongings with great care and respect. Occasionally, I would tell them the story behind something. They were either genuinely interested or very good at being polite! Either way I appreciated the care with which they treated our things that carried memories they could not know.

All of this brought a familiar verse to mind:

“Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.”
Matthew 6:21, NLT

I’ve been thinking about that verse differently tonight.

Sometimes what we treasure about a thing isn’t the thing at all. It’s the person, the memory, or the evidence of God’s faithfulness attached to it.

The rolltop desk isn’t really the treasure. It’s almost fifty years of marriage and life represented by it. It’s the tear-stained prayer list tucked inside.

The piano isn’t really the treasure. It’s Becky playing while our children fell asleep. It’s our family singing together. It’s thousands of people joining us in prayer and worship.

The cards aren’t really the treasure either. It’s the people who cared enough to write them, the prayers they prayed, and the seasons of life we walked through together.

Maybe that is why letting go of some things can be so difficult. We aren’t trying to hold onto the object as much as we are trying to hold onto what it represents.

There is a chair, a bowl, a cup, photographs, paintings—all with personal significance. Some connect us to our ancestors. Others bring back memories of a hike, a missions trip, a marriage retreat, or someone we love.

Our possessions can bring pleasure and comfort to our lives. But they don’t give our lives meaning.

Big difference.

I have a coffee mug I use almost every morning. Years ago, I saw it at Starbucks. It was an Ember mug. I liked it, looked at the price, and promptly put it back!

Sometime later, a young couple saw that same mug and apparently looked at each other and said, “Pastor would love that.”

They bought it and surprised me with it.

For years, I have poured my coffee into that mug before sitting down to study my Bible. It keeps my coffee at exactly 139 degrees while I sip and study. But the best thing about that mug isn’t the temperature of my coffee.

Every time I use it, I pray for the couple who gave it to me.

Just a mug?

Yep.

But what a memory comes with that mug.

Maybe that’s what I am learning tonight as I sit in this nearly empty house.

Eventually, we have to let go of things. We cannot keep everything. But perhaps one of the gifts hidden inside a day like today is learning the difference between the things themselves and what they represent.

These questions are about more than furniture, books, cards, pianos, and coffee mugs.

There are things from this season of our lives that Becky and I will leave behind in Michigan. But there are other things no moving truck could ever carry—the memories, friendships, laughter, prayers, lessons, joys, sorrows, and countless evidences of God’s faithfulness.

Those are coming with us.

The old rolltop desk is coming too. But what matters most isn’t the desk. It is nearly fifty years of life that have happened around it—Bible study and prayer, bills paid and letters written, sermons prepared, decisions made, tears shed, and prayers prayed.

Maybe one of the gifts of moving is discovering the difference between what we own and what has become part of us.

Some things we leave behind.

Some things we pack in boxes.

And some things we carry forever in our hearts.

Grace and Peace!