Daily Devotionals

Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life

Devotional: December 29th

Preparing for a yard sale is always a drawn out proposition. The first thing you have to do is figure out what you have of worth to even sell. What is there cozied away in your closet or attic that might be important enough to advertise for people to buy? Then comes the big question. What worth will you assign those things? Real value has to be laid aside here. You cannot dwell on an item and remember that it one time cost whatever. The big word in yard sales is value.

Value. Translate that to mean an indescribable bargain. That is what puts people in your sale. They see a bargain that they just can't resist. Or maybe they see a bargain that they don't really need but they think someone else might so they call them and tell them about it. What might make a bargain is not necessarily an item that has a particular price on it as much as one that someone feels you, as the seller, will be willing to reduce the price on. That is the essence of the yard sale. It's all about bargaining.

With that in mind, check your ego before you put your really neat stuff in your yard sale. What you might see as a national treasure others will see only as a recyclable piece of merchandise that has already seen its better days. You may have to make the king of decisions that all yard salers must make. Do you want to make enough extra money that you'll let someone buy this for less than you think its worth? Therein is the challenge. What is the absolute lowest price you'll take for that particular item?

Aren't we glad that God didn't go to the yard sale with a bargain hunter's imagination? As He looked through scores and scores of nations and their people His concern was not finding a raced or a tribe that He could purchase for as little as possible. Everywhere He looked He saw what He wanted. He saw His creation. He saw the one part of His masterpiece that He had deliberately fashioned after Him and in whom resided His own breath of life. What did He truly see in all those people?

He saw used up, washed up, devalued people whose lives were being lived for themselves. He saw murderers, adulterers, liars and thieves. And He saw you and me. He saw people whose lives had been rocked by sin and desperate to find a way out. Then He set a value above what the world required. He set HIS value. "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son." John 3:16 With that He bought it all. Not just you and me but everyone else as well. Because God wasn't concerned about a bargain. He was concerned about His creation.