Mine or His?

Mine…we learn this word in early childhood. From a favorite toy to my house, my car, my friend, my coat, my book, my husband, my ministry, my church, my (fill in the blank). Mine, mine, mine…really? These “things” are tied to relationships, to affection from the giver to the receiver. Not the possessive that we turn it into. We decide that it’s mine and I can do with it as I please, with no thought to the consequence. We see it all as a possession – our personal property. We own the rights to them all. Do we even do that with God?

All the time the joke is that the word ‘mine’ in its fully possessive sense cannot be uttered by a human being about anything. In the long run either our Father God or the enemy of our soul will say ‘mine’ of each thing that exists, and especially of each man. We will find out in the end to whom our time, our bodies and our souls really belong. Certainly not to us, whatever happens.

I’m reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. Today this “mine” was brought home to me. (The above is a very loose paraphrase.)

We must keep our minds and hearts on Jesus. On His word. And we must pray. Relinquishing our rights (or what we think of as our rights) to God. We must abandon ourselves to His will, and His ways, and mostly to His love without which we fail.

Thoughts?