For those who seek Jesus, what we trash determines what we seek and acquire.
As toddlers know, letting go of cherished things is not without pain. There is something magical about the silky edge of a blanket and a warm pacifier to quiet those wheezy sobs.
When our seven children were eventually forced to part with their binkies and blankies, you’d have thought their world was shattered. Talk about withdrawal symptoms: convulsions, conniptions, wailing and gnashing of baby teeth!
As traumatic as it is for children to part with the treasures of babyhood, part they must. Charlie Brown’s friend Linus notwithstanding, it wouldn’t do for a second-grader to show up to school toting his tattered blanket or ping-ponging the pacifier in and out of his mouth.
Letting go of the blanket and pacifier is an important rite of passage to the post-toddler world. For followers of Jesus, letting go of comforting bad habits and character flaws is a passage to discipleship.
Adult Blankies and Binkies
While adults don’t cling to blankies and binkies, we sometimes refuse to let go of more potent tranquilizers, be they pride, selfishness or the acquired tastes of the natural man.
For example, do we retreat behind emotional comforters that bind our ability to reach out to others? Do we nurse well-worn sins or teethe on childish distractions even when we should have outgrown them?
Like the dreaded garage clean-up, the more clutter we acquire, the harder it is to discard. Excess baggage, whether physical or emotional, has a way of latching onto us to burden our peace and canker our character.
Pearls and Treasure
Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matt. 6:21). He illustrated this truth in the Parable of the Pearl of Great Price. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it” (Matt: 13:45-46).
James E. Talmage explained this parable: “Men who by search and rescue discover the truths of the kingdom of heaven may have to abandon many of their cherished traditions…No man can become a citizen of the kingdom by partial surrender of his earlier allegiances; he must renounce everything foreign to the kingdom or he can never be numbered therein” (James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, Deseret Book Company, September, 1915, p. 273).
Trading Up
As a child, I wore a Davy Crockett hat day and night. In frisky play or deep in nap time, that treasured coon-skin cap was glued to my head. When I lost the cap, it was like losing a limb. It felt debilitating. It hurt. Yet, I learned to flourish without it. The Apostle Paul said, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things” (1 Cor. 13:11).
As I matured, I traded up to baseball caps and graduation tassels, which I later exchanged for the hats of a father, husband and priesthood holder. Trading up requires a series of exchanges. In each, we let go of valued things to acquire more valuable things.
Discarding our selfishness and offering our will to Jesus, we acquire “a more excellent way” (1 Cor. 12:31). Such treasure demands the kind of effort evident in the merchant man. Without his willingness to trade up by selling “all that he had,” the ultimate pearl would have eluded the merchant.
Like Ananias and Sapphira of old, holding “back part of the price” (Acts 5:1-5) is a symbol for selfishness. Because selfishness is a childish comforter, letting go is painful. But when we do let go, our pain is “swallowed up in the joy of Christ” (Alma 31:38). It is only by letting go of selfish attributes that we can acquire the attributes of Jesus.
The pearl of great price is also the pearl of greatest value. To acquire it, all who love the Lord must ultimately confront two questions: What do I seek? What do I trash?
One bad habit at a time, one sin at a time, one cherished but flawed tradition at a time–these are the discards that allow us to acquire the “image of Jesus” (Alma 5:14). Once acquired and nurtured, Christ’s image becomes our shining portrait of eternal life. Such an exchange is a priceless pearl indeed.
