To Have and to Hold

To own something means it's yours. But is it really?

Some people buy sailboats and some join sailing clubs and use the clubs boats.

Sure there are some distinctions. The owner can use the boat whenever they want. The club member has to schedule. The owner pays insurance and maintenance while the club member does neither.

Picture a club member relaxing in his borrowed boat looking at nice wood paneling in the state room and enjoying the deep tones of the grains and polished surface.

Now picture a boat owner in their state room enjoying the wood paneling in the same way.

The similarities are interesting. Both enjoy it the same and neither one can take it with them.

When we die we take none of our possessions. Anything we 'own' is just a temporary stewardship. Maybe it's a few hours at a time while we sail a club boat or a few years if we buy a boat. But either way it's not truly ours because we will not possess it forever.

Our intelligence we possess forever. Our sealed relationships we keep forever. But nothing physical on this earth is ours and we are deceiving ourselves if we believe otherwise. We are but stewards of things for a brief time while we are here.

"And now I ask, can ye say aught of yourselves? I answer you, Nay. Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth; yet ye were created of the dust of the earth; but behold, it belongeth to him who created you."

It's silly to be proud of our possessions because they aren't even ours which makes the pride so vain it exposes our self deception for others to see.

Everything we 'have' actually belongs to the person who created us.

- Mosiah 2:25