The first year that I returned to Indiana, my sister and I spent a great deal of time together. She drove a Kubota utility vehicle and spent hours taking rides on country roads and catching up after being apart for nearly fifty years. We enjoyed photographing flowers and talking about childhood memories of places we passed.

Somewhere along the way, though, we noticed aluminum cans littered the roadside. At first, we picked up cans to make the countryside look better, then we decided we might as well recycle them and make some pocket money. Soon we were obsessed with picking up cans. We crossed muddy ditches to get cans out of fields and tried out new ways to snare the cans with grabbers. Soon, all we saw – even while traveling in a car – was the glint of a can that we needed to get.

As we kept our focus on mangled cans in dusty roadside weeds, sassafras trees on the hillsides turned deep orange, soft maples turned gold and oaks dropped their leaves. When November came, and it was too cold to ride in an open-air vehicle, we turned in the cans for redemption. Though the cans filled the bed of a pick-up truck, the income covered little more than the fuel for the Kubota. While we had focused on accumulating pocket change from crumpled cans, the glory of a Midwest fall had come and gone.

In a similar way, the lure of acquiring a few more earthly possessions can easily distract and cause us to miss God’s great blessings.

Take time to enjoy:
The material riches you already possess
The ever-changing beauty of God’s creation
Time with family and friends
Fellowship with Christians
Time alone with God – in his Word and prayer

 “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” Colossians 3:2

Martha Hawn VanCise©
Photo: MHVanCise