To be honest, I moved in to the current house mostly because of the feeling that it was meant for me by God. I got a bacterial infection on my first week and had to take the antibiotics for 2 weeks. 7 people sharing an old wooden house, rather cluttered and covered in dust and cat hairs (2 cats in the house) would not have been my natural choice. I was looking for a master room with clean carpeted floor and an en suite at about double the price of my current rent.
Well, God has a cheeky sense of humor, I should admit. I realized that if I have to live here, I’m gonna have to make a difference here. So, firstly toilets and bathrooms were attacked, some mushrooms plucked from inside the shower booth and I’m not even joking! Toilet bowls and wash basins have changed the color from brown to sparkly white. Amount of cobwebs removed could possibly be made into a sweater, every items in the shelf were taken out and rearranged in order. Then I went downstairs bathroom which I never use and scrubbed the toilet bowls and walls. After weeks of internal renovation, finally all 7 of us got our name signs stuck on the door. Having my morning meditation, I look up the sky, I am grateful to God, even for moving into the rather hygienically challenging house and make a difference in where he sent me.
I wondered, would people take care of others possession in a same they would do for their own? If not, why? Unfortunately, people are basically selfish beings, just like the workers in the vineyard who questioned the master for paying the new workers who has joined only later in the evening the same wages as them. If they can get by without being caught most people would choose to take the easy way out. Perhaps this is why communism is an ideal yet unrealistic social ideology, because when something belongs to everybody it belongs to nobody.
I see the only context this can work is perhaps in ideal christian community or in heaven. We saw this happened in the early church fellowship, which is a big missing element in today’s society. All I have can be packed into a travel luggage in few minutes, but I feel rich for having God who owns everything. Could it possibly be the key to the Apostle Paul’s “secret of being content in any and every situation” (Phil 4:12)?
Jesus possessed nothing but He owned everything.
