God’s Plunder Room - Martin Wiles

My ancestor Jacob was a wandering Aramean who went to live in Egypt. Deuteronomy 26:5 NLT

We called it the plunder room because that’s what we did there.

My grandmother’s home had a large room built on the back—a room that was once a bedroom for a father who stayed with them. Sometime after his death, my grandfather tore away some of that part of the large farmhouse, but he left what we called the plunder room. My cousin and I often spent time there sorting through the multitude of discarded items to see if there was anything we might use as we tried to entertain ourselves on the farm. Technology hadn’t inundated our lives. Restlessness drove us there when we had nothing else particular to do. 

Many of the mid-Eastern Biblical characters were somewhat nomadic. Various occurrences caused them to change locations. For Jacob, it was learning his youngest son Joseph wasn’t dead after all. A desire to see him and escape the famine that ravaged his land made him leave his homeland and travel to Egypt where his descendants eventually spent 400 years in slavery. 

Restlessness is a taxing feeling. As a teen and even young adult, it hung over my head more than once. The desire to get away…to escape. I couldn’t pinpoint any reason; I just wanted to leave. Hop an empty railroad box car and see where it took me. Walk a power line and see where it led. 

As I look back, I suppose my restlessness was created by my running…from God. I knew what He wanted from me, but the lifestyle I was living fought against it. Not until I stopped plundering in the wrong places and with the wrong people did I finally settle down. I still periodically fight the restless spirit—the desire to return to what once was. Paul calls it battling the flesh. The part of me that wants to rebel against God and all I know to be right. 

God wants us to plunder in His plunder room. Rather than discarded valueless items, God’s plunder room holds His purpose and plan. It houses the strength to do His work. He doesn’t want us to live aimlessly and purposelessly but rather to discover His plan and follow it diligently. 

Are you searching around in God’s plunder room?

Prayer: Father, guide us to pursue those things of spiritual value that will enable us to accomplish Your will for us. 

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