Do you own your things or do they own you?

I opened up the morning paper and saw this headline: "Woman sells everything on eBay to start new life." From reading the article this one quote really stood out:

"This might be midlife, but it's not a crisis. It's midlife excitement,"
she said. "I don't need it all. I don't use it all. I just have it all.
Actually, it has me."

When you stop to think of it, do we really own or things or do they own us? Our house, we own it but it takes up our weekends doing repairs, cutting the grass, shoveling the walks. We own our car but we need to repair it, do routine maintenance on it. We own our book collection but we have to make sure they are stored in the right humidity or they will get damaged.

I challenge my network to take a look at what you own and see if you own it or if it owns you. If you responded that it does take up a lot of your time then you may be missing out on time spent in other areas. Although , Jesus did say sell all you own take up your cross and follow me., I am not saying we need to do what it says in the article and sell everything.

On the contrary, take a look at what you enjoy and spend your energy there. Let the things you love own you. Use the things you own to make your life and others special. Then you will own your things and they will not own you.

Here is a link to the full article:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070410/NEWS07/704100387/1001/NEWS

I hope this reflection is helpful to my network. If you have any inspiring messages or tips you think may help the other portal members feel free to email them to me at chrisw_88@hotmail.com and I will post them.