Mason Jars

Mason Jars (by Campfire Cowboy Ministries)
The young cowboy walked to his bunk and lifted the mattress and grabbed a twenty dollar bill. As he sat the mattress back down, his girlfriend asked if that’s where he kept all his money. He said it was and they walked out the door.

All the way to town, the young lady went over in her mind the hundreds of things that could happen to all his money. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore and asked him, “What if the bunkhouse catches on fire and all your money burns up?”

“Don’t borrow trouble sweetheart,” the cowboy replied. “If you go through life worried about the fires, you’ll never see the forest.”

“You know what I mean Socrates! Why don’t you put that money in the bank? What if someone breaks in and steals it?”

The cowboy laughed and said, “I ain’t never been robbed by no burglar, but I’ve sure enough been swindled by some fellas in three-piece suits.”

“How much money do you have stashed underneath there?”

“Oh, I don’t reckon I pull it out and count it. But if I was to take an uneducated guess, I’d say a couple of thousand or so.”

“What?! You’ve got to get that in a safe or something to protect it.”

As they pulled up to the little cowboy church he said, “You know, it’s not even my money. Everything I have comes from God. I’ll let him protect it. I know you think I’m being foolish because I keep all my money in such a precarious place, but look at where God entrusted his message.”

“His message is kept in the hearts of humans,” he continued. “How broken and frail are we that he has placed his most precious gift? Yet, he asks us to keep it safe and spread it around for everyone else.”

“So you see, I trust God. Nothing is beyond his sight or his control. I don’t leave the money out for everyone to see, but safes and banks just keep the honest people away and they were never a threat in the first place.”

She sat there, trying to soak it in and understand. She opened the truck door and said, “I guess you’re right. If God can trust us with his message, then we can trust him with our lives.”

But we have this treasure in fragile mason jars, which is you and me, to show that the powerful message of salvation is from God and not from us. 2 Corinthians 4:7 (Simplified Cowboy Version)