1 John 2

Morning sickness is for the birds.

1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life, is not from the Father but from the world. Yet the world and it's enticement are passing away. But whomever doss be will of God remains forever. 

This is a tough verse to understand. I don't think if you say "I love my car," you are not with God. I think this more means if you think you are better than other people because of your car, making you prideful, means you are not with God. If someone has arrogance in their earthly style, that can show independence from God. 

When I was in my first year of college, I had received a chain email that send "send this to all the people you love to say luv ya." I sent it to my dad, and got a response that I have not yet forgotten. He replied telling me how different "luv ya" and "love" were. That we are not called to love objects, pets, houses, clothes, etc, so we shouldn't say " I love my car." He said love should only be expressed to  people, thieves that if they were suddenly taken out of our life, we would be devastated, we wouldn't want to go on. He was trying to instill in me the importance and the strength of the word love. This isn't to say you shouldn't show love to the kid down the street that you don't even know. He was trying to get me to see the bigger picture about not loving material things.

 Two years later, we, and three of our family members down our road, as well as most of south Losiana, lost our house and everything in it from a tidal surge from Hurricane Rita. It left 48" of water I our house for three days. Coming home from college, seeing all our possessions on the front lawn covered in mud (my family had already been trying to remove stuff to see if anything was salvageable) was terrible. But we weren't devastated. Why? Because we were all still alive. We had each other. Our earthy possessions had be taken away in a single moment. We overcame this with God and the help of good neighbors (most of which has also been flooded). 

When our time comes, our earthly possssions won't matter. We can't take them with us. The only thing that will matter is the love we have shown to others and to God. So we should focus more on love than on our "things" now. I thank God everyday for what I have because I know that it is through him I have been blessed, and through him they can be taken away.