As people we tend to have a pretty unhealthy relationship with stuff. By stuff I mean the things we own; cars, phones, clothes, houses, watches etc. As I have observed and experienced this I have noticed that all too often we end up in one of two fairly extreme positions on the subject.

1 – We put way too high a value on the things we own. We often attach identities to them and begin to identify ourselves off them. “If I don’t have a nice car people will think I am……” or “all my friends have the latest tech so I will be rejected if I don’t keep up.” Often what ends up happening in this scenario is that the stuff that we own ends up owning us.

2 – we become so scared of stuff owning us that we reject it. In the church I’ve even heard the thought that to have any ‘unnecessary’ stuff is actually sinful. People go minimalist in a drive to not have any stuff in their lives and while this might seem good on the surface it is too often motivated by fear and ends up enslaving them in a whole other way.

Throughout my own life I fully admit that I am way more in danger of position 1 than position 2 but I have been seeking to learn a more balanced approach when it comes to my stuff. Here’s my big point – our stuff is neutral. Our cars, clothes, watches and phones are not alive! Even with AI they are not living things that can have a relationship with us. They can’t be bad or good in and of themselves. However, whilst they are neutral, how we interact with them is not. We can choose how to use them; for good, or bad. It’s on us. Our stuff is good or bad depending on how we decide to interact and use them, or how we allow them to use us.

This isn’t a new thing and as I was spending time with Jesus today reading the scriptures I saw this. There is a crazy moment (one of many) when the Children of Israel are journeying through the wilderness from their captivity and they begin to grumble to Moses about the lack of water and food. They ask him why he even brought them out of Egypt in the first place, which of course is a deeply offensive question both to Moses and the Lord. The Lord punishes their insolence by sending venomous snakes amongst them and many of the Israelites died. I realise that this is a bit of a strange response from God – i don’t fully understand it either but let’s just trust Him and park that there. After this the people then come to Moses and repent. They admit that they have sinned against the Lord and they ask Moses to pray that the snakes would go away and they would live. Moses obliges and this was God’s response;

The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived. Numbers 21:8-9

For lots of reasons this was, again, a strange way for the Lord to respond. He had never been happy with them before when they created any images or idols, in fact He had clearly instructed them to never do that. Anytime throughout the scriptures when someone did create any kind of statue or idol they were severely dealt with. However on this occasion He clearly instructs them to do it. God wasn’t unaware of the risks here. He knew that there was every chance they would misunderstand this moment and start to think the snake itself had power. Not only that but the image of a snake was not one associated with God. It was quite the opposite. The serpent was the form satan took in the garden of Eden, it was the creature punished for that moment. It was strange that God instructed Moses to do this. However, when God speaks you do what He says.

The bronze snake was good because God said it was good. What we find out as we read on in the Scriptures is that Israel did keep the bronze snake. I’m unsure if they were meant to or whether it should have been a ‘one and done’ kind of thing, but they kept it, and as we journey into the book of 2 Kings we find out that the people have in fact turned it into an idol, they had made it a god. Something that should have been a reminder of Gods power and goodness had become a god to them. in the reign of Hezekiah in Judah we read this.

He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.) 2 Kings 18:4

The snake that was good was now no longer good. This isn’t the only time in the Bible this happens. I had a conversation with a friend the other day and he talked about how when the Children of Israel left Egypt God supplied them with gold from the Egyptians. This was a gift from God, they plundered the nation that had subjected them to slavery. The gold was a good gift to them. However 40 days later or so when they were waiting for Moses to return from the mountain they took the gold gifts that they had received from the Lord and used them to make a golden calf that they could worship instead of the the Lord. They took something that was good and made it bad. The gold itself was neutral, it could be a gift or snare. It started as a gift and was turned into a snare.

We need a lot of wisdom from the Lord to understand how to use the things even He has given us. It’s is a daily walk and talk with Him to understand how to use the stuff we have. We must hold the things He has given us lightly because at any time they can become snares to us. At the same time we should be grateful and open to the fact that the stuff we have can be used to glorify Him at any point as well. It’s important that we don’t shift the blame of our actions into our stuff. We must take responsibility for our own thoughts and how they translate into actions around us.

Oh God, once again, please help us!