The Stash

This fall, the squirrel population seems to be exploding.
I see them in my front yard.
I hear them scurry along the side of my house.
I watch them scamper across my deck outside the kitchen window.

Usually they are carrying a walnut in their mouth.
They have a vast supply at my house since we have a large walnut tree on the front lawn.
It is the tree on which my youngest daughter wanted to have a tree swing.
It is a beautiful tree, but this time of year, the debris that falls on the grass is extensive.

Long twigs fall down continuously.
Round walnuts fall all over the driveway.
As we drive towards the street, we actually can hear the walnut shells popping underneath.
We make the job a bit easier for the squirrels who now have access to the nut inside the shell.

You have to be careful picking up any walnuts with your bare hands.
The beautiful walnut stain that many of us like on our wood, stains our hands.
If you kick the walnut with your shoe, it is possible that stain will get on your shoe as well.
That which is a bit of a nuisance for us is a veritable feast for the squirrels.

I watched a squirrel chase another squirrel down the walnut tree and across the driveway.
There is a literal territory war going on in front of my house.
I see the squirrels each morning on my walk.
They scurry in front of me carrying a nut in their mouth as they dash across the street.

I watched a squirrel dart in front of me and stop at the base of a large tree.
As I approached the squirrel, he made a mad dash into the woods with the nut in his mouth.
I wondered where he was hiding his food.
I imagined him storing all the walnuts and acorns for the winter that is coming.

I found myself asking the question, Where are you keeping your stash?
What does your hiding place look like? I wondered.
How many times a day do you bring a walnut to your special place?
How long with the stash last you, particularly if our winter is harsh with lots of snow?

I continued my walk thinking about the stash.
The squirrel is not the only one to keep a stash.
We all have our own stash of sorts.
We stash away various things for various reasons.

My younger son, who is married now, had such a stash.
I will never forget the day I stumbled upon it.
I was changing the sheets and my foot hit something under his bed.
I got down to look and see what was under his bed.

To my surprise, I saw small milk cartons.
I could not even count the number upon my first glance.
There were cartons of white milk and cartons of chocolate milk.
They were all empty and appeared to be rinsed clean.

I had not known the milk cartons were under the bed.
There was no smell of sour milk.
I could not even imagine what would make my son keep milk cartons under his bed.
He was in sixth grade at the time.

When he got home from school that day, he showed me something he found on the bus.
His pockets were the ones I always needed to go through before I did the laundry.
I would find broken pencils, the shell of a pen, rubber bands, paper clips, and a bouncy ball.
There was joy in the find as long as he could put whatever he found in his pocket.

I never saw him come home with the milk cartons.
They were surely too big for his pocket.
I knew that the milk cartons must have come home in his backpack.
But why?

After he showed me the action figure he found, I asked him the question that needed an answer.
Why do you have milk cartons under your bed?
Without a hint of embarrassment he answered, I was collecting them. 
Me and my friends wanted to see who drank the most milk, he explained.

From the look of things, my son must have won that contest.
I want you to gather all of the milk cartons and throw them away, I told him.
You can count them and keep a tally sheet, but no more milk cartons are to be brought home.
Understood? I asked rhetorically.

Yes, he said as he walked upstairs.
He came down a short time later with all of the milk cartons in a trash bag.
This stash of milk cartons under his bed became the source of playful teasing from his siblings.
Even he laughed about the absurdity of what he collected.

And He told them this parable: The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, “What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.” Then he said, “This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink, and be merry.” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich towards God. (Luke 12:16-21)

The rich man had a stash of crops.
He trusted in his stash and not in God.
He foolishly thought that he was in control of his stash.
God called him a fool because his trust was misplaced.

We all have some sort of stash.
In the depression era, people stashed money in mattresses because they did not trust the banks.
Survivalists stash month’s supply of water, food, batteries, and cash in case of a disaster.
It is not wrong to plan; it is wrong to trust in our planning.

We build our metaphorical barns to hold whatever it is we stash.
We assume that our stash will keep us secure when the storms come.
We forget who is Lord over the storm.
We forget who is sovereign over all.

Collecting, preparing, and storing is not wrong in and of itself.
It is wrong when the stash becomes an idol and is the object of our faith.
You fool, is not something I want to hear from God.
Well done, good and faithful servant is something I long to hear.

Keeping a stash of anything that we trust in for our security makes us foolish indeed.
Only God holds us securely in His hands.
Our stash is built on a shaky foundation of sand.
Put your stash in perspective; it is never greater than God.

Ever.