Stuff and Substance

This weekend was the first time I've been back in the home where I grew up since my Dad and the Lovely Widow were married. Between their post-wedding travel and my own hectic fall, schedules just hadn't worked out for me to visit.

And, if I'm honest, I was a little apprehensive about walking into the house where my mother had lived and raised her family for 56 years. When she died suddenly we had left everything in its place, but now another woman was cooking at her stove, sitting in her chair.

What would it be like? Would everything be rearranged? Would it feel like a place I didn't know any more? What about Mom's stuff? Would she be gone?

I dragged my bags in the back door, set them down, looked around, and smiled. Some things were different--family pictures from two very different families now are scattered throughout the living room, a new couch has replaced the old worn-out sofa, and the music on the piano is a piece I've never seen before.

But the home Mom created here remains. I realized that if every single piece of furniture had been changed my mother would not have been erased from the surroundings. I still would see her in the air molecules around me, her memory fresh with every glimpse of a hand-written recipe or quirky candle.

Her stuff may be gone, but her substance remains.

That got me thinking about my relationship with God. So often this relationship is built of "stuff"--of special music played at church, of meetings attended, even of chapters ticked off in a Bible reading schedule.

What would happen if all of this stuff disappeared? What would be the substance of my relationship with God? Would I have developed complete trust in His provision, and absolute joy in worship? Would He see compassion in my attitude toward the weak, hurting, and powerless? Would I have developed an attitude of submission to my God?

Would He recognize my substance?