Imagine your life is a storehouse. You go through life collecting things you consider very essential and important and put them in that storehouse. The places where you usually store them are in your heart and mind. In fact, you cannot pick and store what you do not consider important. After all, when you go to the Mall you buy the things you consider important, and it does not matter if you need them or not. You do exactly the same with your entire life! We do not know what you have in the storehouse of your life; we only have a clue to it through your actions and words. For it is only out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. Whenever a need arises, you draw from your storehouse to deal with the situation. Wouldn’t it be great if once in a while you looked into the storehouse of your life and saw the things that you have collected over the years and that are giving you and others so many problems, and just remove them and rearrange your storehouse to be more beautiful, more peaceful, more lovely? How true these words of Jesus are: “A good tree does not bear rotten fruit nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thorn bushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles. A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks” (Luke 6: 43-45).
The storehouse of your house contains all that constitute who you are and your character. The way you think, live and relate to people are all contained in your storehouse. You cannot give from what is not contained in the storehouse of your life. It is just as simple as that. Therefore, Our Lord challenges us first, to know what we have in the storehouse. Secondly, to make an effort to remove and throw away those that are not good for us or for others and bring in those that are good.
People often regret using hurtful words against others. But the point is that of the millions of words that exist, the hurtful words came first in their mouth. What does it tell you? That is the whole point. That which readily comes handy probably has a place in the storehouse! You can now see why the saints spend time looking at the storehouse of their lives in order to make it much more lovely, and the improvement is reflected in the changes in their attitude to life, the greater peace and forgiveness in their heart, the gentle and caring way they relate to others, the gradual dying of envy and jealousy and all those unnecessary feelings and thoughts that seem to hold them hostage to a miserable life.
So, what is in the storehouse of your life? How many compartments are there? What is in each compartment? Are the contents of your storehouse bringing you joy and peace or unnecessary suffering? Do the contents make you more loving, more caring and more forgiving of yourself and others, or do they make you more miserably selfish? Just remember: the storehouse of your life is YOU and with prayer and grace of God, you can work on it and make it so lovely and beautiful. It is my prayer for you and for me. Amen