Daily Jewel

by Pastor Carnell, McAlester, OK

Hearts are not “Garage-Sale” Appropriate
“...the heart of the wicked is of little value…” – Proverbs 10:20b (NIV)

It is amazing some of the incredible “bargains” some people find at garage/yard sales. And not simply bargains—but outright incredible discoveries.
As the saying goes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and Aaron LaPedis is living proof. Over the years he’s been so successful buying and reselling other people’s unwanted items, he’s earned the nickname The Garage Sale Millionaire and even written a book about it. His most recent gem: photo negatives of Elvis Presley’s famous appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show — the one where Sullivan told him he couldn’t shake his hips — that he hopes to sell for six figures.
He tells of a man, Ray Snider, who stumbled across a yard sale in his native town of Quincy, Massachusetts. A woman was selling items she came across in her grandfather’s attic after he had passed away. She placed a number of items in several boxes and sold each box for a whopping $5 apiece. Ray took a chance and purchased two of the boxes. When he got home and started going through them he came across some old baseball cards. Being Boston Red Sox fan, Snider immediately recognized the names and knew immediately he may have come across true treasure. Two months after his purchase Ray traveled to Baltimore to the National Sports Collectors Convention where his 37 baseball cards featuring the likes of Hall of Famers Ty Cobb, Cy Young and Honus Wagner fetched $566,132 in brisk online and live bidding. I would say that Ray’s $5 investment was well worth it.
Obviously, those discoveries are rare and the reason why people go to garage sales is to find what bargains they can. They often spend little and that is just about what they get in return. That is unless the one having the garage/yard sale is not in good standing with their spouse. I recently read of woman who discovered that her husband was having an affair. He eventually moved out leaving the woman he had spent the last 20 years with. She had given her heart to this man only to have it broken. Her initial response was to take all of the personal items belonging to him and had left behind and just burn them but her better sense soon overtook her and thought the better of it. She decided to have yard sale, selling essentially everything that was his, which included a premium set of golf clubs, worth well over $1,000 just by themselves. On top of that one of the club covers was signed by a young and up and coming professional golfer by the name of “Tiger” Woods. When a buyer spotted the clubs he asked, “What do you want for these?” Her response, “Make me an offer.” Talk about a bargain—she was $20 richer and let’s just say that was the best $20 investment he had ever made!
To this woman, her husband’s actions reduced the value of what his life represented. Now, maybe this was (and is) an extreme example but the more I think about it what I get from this is that evil actions and/or words, reduce those individuals down to nothing.
Hearts are not like baseball cards that can be had at a bargain price. You can no more treat someone’s trust in you than you can expect to buy love in a box of items found in an attic! You might find a long lost Picasso painting, but not something as important as a deep, interpersonal relationship, especially our relationship with Christ.
The Apostle Paul writes: Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” – 1st Corinthians 6:19-20
You may find some great bargain and discoveries like Ray Snider and Aaron LePedis, but make no mistake about it—anything less than our best in our servitude to Christ and to the Kingdom of God is what the great German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer called, “cheap grace.”
I do wish, however, I had been the one to find those $20 golf clubs. Maybe someday.
Pastor J. T. Carnell