I must confess that I love the History Channel. Troy is my favorite from “Swamp People.” I love Chumley on “Pawn Stars.” Apart from the bizarre extra-terrestrial themed shows I love it all – from Modern Marvels to Mysteries of History. One of my favorites is “American Pickers.”
In a nutshell, “American Pickers” is about two guys who roam the back roads of America looking for treasure in other peoples’ trash. In a typical episode, our heroes, Mike and Frank, are driving down some one lane country road in their over-sized white van looking for a a property likely to have a whole lot of really old stuff someone never got around to clearing out. Or maybe they got a tip from their office helper Danielle, that there was a huge collector of Americana that might want to liquidate his or her collection of what you or I might call “junk.”
Finding a likely spot, Mike and Frank crawl into attics, and basements, rummage through piles and piles of broken, rusty, moldy, long-forgotten items. And then they find something and their faces light up and they say to the home owner, “What about this? Would you take $25 for this?”
In some respects, their wandering search for American treasure is not unlike God’s search for broken down souls in the darkest secular haunts we can lose ourselves in. But in other ways, God’s work is entirely different. Going back to our pickers, Mike and Frank, two things seem constant in their picking process: (1) their choices are limited to what they can sell for a profit in a reasonable amount of time, and (2) the price they offer is always based on the condition of the item at the point of discovery.
This is not the way it is with God. When God chose you he had no intention of flipping you for a profit. God is not a middle man. God is the collector – who keeps what he gathers forever. He is, as Psalm 121 so powerfully puts it, a
“Keeper of souls.”
And got didn’t pick you out of a mess of junk because you were in such bad shape that the price was right. He didn’t pay for you based on your value at the time of purchase. When he saw you he determined to pay the highest price conceivable. You were bought by the blood of Jesus.
Why this contrast between American Pickers and our Sovereign, choosing God this November? Too often, I think, we feel as if we were rusty pieces of once useful or otherwise desirable pieces of humanity cast into the barns and cellars of a fallen society. We were not worth much then and maybe feel that we are not worth much now either. And we wonder what possible reason God could have for having plucked us from the piles of boxes… This November be thankful that you are worth what God paid for you. Your value in the eyes of God cannot be overestimated. You are precious in his eyes simply because he has set his delight on you. And that will last forever.
Your Pastor,
Bob Bjerkaas