—By Father DavidDFO106515/9/80

—"Lay Aside Every Weight!" (Heb.12:1.)

—"Lay not up for yourselves treasures on Earth‚ where moth & rust doth corrupt, & thieves break through & steal." (Mt.6:19.)

1. IT'S A SHAME TO HAVE TO TELL YOU HOW TO PRESERVE STORAGE WHEN YOU SHOULDN'T EVEN HARDLY BE STORING ANYTHING according to God's rules & laws, but since we do move a lot I think the Lord will probably make a little extra exception for us & we do use our things quite a bit & often & a whole lot.

2. BUT AS USUAL, WHAT USUALLY PROMPTS THESE LETTERS TO THE WHOLE FAMILY on something which is a general Family need & something they need to know too, has been our own dear garage where we went out on an inspection tour the other day to see how these things be, & we discovered things were in quite a mess! Some were in a mess from the last garage, ruined mattress from having set it directly on the floor either leak or ground run-off water or something, & the mattress is now almost shot.

3. I REALISE YOU'RE JUST DUMB & YOU'RE JUST IGNORANT & you never had much storage to deal with before‚ & maybe as Maria suggested we need to give this lecture to the whole Family because we have a lot of mobile Families now moving and perhaps leaving their storage behind in somebody's house or garage or storeroom or attic or somewhere.

4. PROBABLY IT'S JUST LACK OF EXPERIENCE & you don't realise what's apt to happen. I suppose since our Family moves a lot & has to store things quite frequently, maybe this is a lesson you all need.

5. AS THE LORD HAS WARNED, "LAY NOT UP FOR YOURSELVES TREASURES ON EARTH WHERE MOTH & RUST DOTH CORRUPT & THIEVES BREAK THROUGH & STEAL." (Mt. 6:19.) Well‚ they wouldn't have had to break through out there because somebody left the door unlocked!

6. IN THE FIRST PLACE I WOULD CHOOSE A GOOD DRY PLACE & make sure the roof doesn't leak. Make sure it also doesn't flood when it rains. Even if the roof doesn't leak, if it's in a low spot on an alley someplace where the water maybe runs down like a river when it rains, it could run right in under the door if the garage floor isn't built up higher than the surface & flood the whole garage. When you're gone & not knowing it.

7. AND OF COURSE IT OUGHT TO BE A SECURE PLACE where you can lock the door securely enough that you don't expect people to break in. Of course in all cases when you have storage that's left alone & you go away & neglect it or have to leave it‚ any kind of storage, whether it's a stored vehicle, a storage garage or if it's even a house that's more or less in storage—you just go in & close up your house for the Summer or the Winter for a year on the field or somewhere—the best protection you have besides making sure it's weather-proof & weather-tight & closed up tight is to have it where it can be seen by the neighbours.

8. THERE'S NOTHING A THIEF OR BURGLAR HATES AS MUCH AS BEING SEEN, that's why they usually work in the dark. So that if that door or window or garage door or window or garage door or vehicle is in plain sight of someone who might be looking out a window—they don't know‚ they can't see whether are or not, they might be or could be—they're not apt to bother it.

9. SO YOU NEED TO KEEP ANYTHING THAT'S STORED, even a vehicle, trailer, maybe a luggage trailer that you've got stuff stored in, you'd better be sure they're weather-tight, or a house even, but especially garages.

10. OF COURSE NORMALLY SOMEBODY WHO WANTS TO RENT YOU THEIR GARAGE IS NOT GOING TO TELL YOU THAT THE ROOF LEAKS & if the floor floods everytime it rains. One of the safest ways is just take it for granted that it leaks, it's not waterproof, & it maybe floods, & therefore put your stuff up off the floor.

11. REMEMBER, MOST STORAGE ROOMS, ESPECIALLY GARAGES, ARE NOT NECESSARILY WATERTIGHT, they frequently either leak or flood, & it's not supposed to make much difference because all you're supposed to put in there is your car standing on four rubber tires!

12. SO WHEN YOU START PUTTING HOUSEHOLD GOODS IN THERE, the normal procedure, if you can, is to build a board platform up off the concrete. Because no matter what you put in there, even if there's not a flood or a leak, concrete absorbs moisture. It will even seep up from the ground underneath & absorb the moisture into the concrete.

13. YOU CANNOT STORE THINGS ON THE BARE CONCRETE FLOOR OF ANY KIND OF A BUILDING, You notice none of these couches or beds are sitting right on the floor, they all have legs‚ If they were flat on the floor‚ most of them would accumulate not only dirt, bugs, probably mice, dust, lint & cobwebs, but all kinds of fungus & mildew. That's what got that poor bed!

14. ANYTHING YOU SET ON THE CONCRETE WILL GET DAMP & WILL EVENTUALLY MOLD & ROT. Most store rooms are unheated & not always waterproof or watertight, frequently flood or leak or both, & to protect your things you need protection not only over the things, like a tarp or plastic cover or something to keep off the dirt & the dust & the bugs & the rain, & the leaks‚ but you need to prop'm up off the floor.

15. IF YOU'VE EVER BEEN TO A STOREHOUSE OR A WAREHOUSE‚ have you ever noticed what they call flats?—Big board squares built purposely for that purpose, even in a multi-storied warehouse.

16. YOU PROBABLY DON'T HAVE ANY FLATS LIKE THEY USE IN MOST WAREHOUSES. but you can lay—as we have done sometimes—two or three two-by-fours on the floor for it. You can just lay them down flat on the floor & then put a number of pieces of board across.

17. PUT A TWO-BY-FOUR ABOUT EVERY THREE OR FOUR FEET UNDERNEATH THE BOARDS to support the boards that you are going to put your things on. This was if you keep the stuff up off the floor—unless it's really a flood that's four or five inches deep—it is not apt to get wet.

18. SO YOUR BEST PROTECTION IS TO SET IT UP ON FLATS or build your own flats by just laying a two–by-four every three or four feet & then laying boards across the top of the two-by-four so that the stuff is therefore propped up three or four inches off the concrete, off the ground.

19. NOW, ENTIRELY METAL BEDSPRINGS CAN BE STORED SITTING DIRECTLY ON A FLOOR‚ but you ought to see them if they've been there a few months! That entire metal edge is usually completely rusted & a mess‚ so that's not a good idea either. So the best thing to do is build yourself up a little flooring like I suggested‚ & put the stuff on top of it.

20. IF YOU HAVE ENOUGH FURNITURE WITH LEGS THAT ARE LONG ENOUGH, it's possible you might even be able to do without the flats or the flooring if the legs are at least three or four inches long.

21. THE EASIEST THING FOR YOU TO DO IS SET DOWN YOUR FURNITURE FIRST ON ITS LEGS, which gives that much more air space, & be sure you put your beds down on their legs, not stacked on edge along with the mattresses. Set the bed down on its legs, if it has legs, & then pile your mattresses and your cushions and your clothing & thing like that on top of the furniture & the beds which already standing on legs already off the floor.

22. SO ANYWAY, YOUR STORAGE MUST BE PROPPED UP OFF THE GROUND OR FLOOR no matter what kind of ground or floor it is, it doesn't matter. It's got to be off the ground. And there has to be air able to circulate underneath it. And it must be covered, completely covered clear down to the bottom, if possible, then with rope or string or cord tied tightly around the cover‚ all the way around.

23. YOU STACK IT IN A PILE MAYBE SIX FEET WIDE OR SQUARE & SIX OR EIGHT FEET DEEP‚ & you've got to get yourself a nice great big plastic sheet that's big enough to cover the whole works, comedown the sides. Or a couple of plastic sheets, overlap'm so that they don't leak in case the leak happens to be right over the pile.

24. AND IF YOU DO HAVE TO USE THEM OVERLAPPING, make sure the overlap is downgrade, if you know what I mean, on top of the pile. If you have to overlap two sheets, overlap'm like this where they shed water. Overlap'm like this & they'll absorb water & you may as well not cover them at all. Just like tile, they have to be overlapped like this:

25. BEFORE YOU PUT THE FINAL COVERING ON after you've got the stuff nicely stacked off the floor, get a spray of some kind that is a bug retardant residual spray that repels bugs & is so stinky or whatever it is the bugs or mice don't even like to get near it, & spray everything real thoroughly inside about as much as you can, even under the pillows & everything.

26. IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO SPRAY THE FLOORING that you've built to set it on before you put it there, & then spray the mattresses, your furniture‚ your pillows, your chairs, spray everything to retard the bugs‚ or you'll come back & find the place is not dead but a living city full of all kinds of creatures & cobwebs & spiders & mice etc.!

27. AND SOMETIMES YOU CAN SPRAY IT WITH A DAMP RESISTANT SPRAY WHICH RESISTS DAMP. Because no matter how much you spray it against bugs & mice & rats, the damp will get at it & the saphrophytes, of which there is a very large family & you find them everywhere in every clime, hot or cold. You find molds & mildews & mushrooms & things like that in almost every climate.

28. EVEN THE FURNITURE WILL ABSORB MOISTURE FROM THE AIR IF IT'S NOT COVERED. It will also get thick with dust. It doesn't matter where you are, there's always dust & there are always bugs. Covering doesn't completely prevent the bugs, but discourages the bugs from entering in.

29. YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY HAVE A PLACE THAT IS UNOCCUPIED BY HUMAN BEINGS & NOTHING BUT A LOT OF STORAGE, as the Lord Himself warned us, but what the rot & the corruption will set in—the rust so-called which covers a lot of those things—plus the thieves, which include rats, mice, roaches & everything else that chew on things. They sometimes build nests underneath in the furniture if the place has been unoccupied for a long time.

30. CLOTHING, BOOKS, PAPERS, PHOTOS, BEDDING & THINGS LIKE THAT THE DAMPNESS OR BUGS WILL TO TOTALLY RUIN, OR ESPECIALLY MICE. I've come & found whole huge pieces gnawed out of the corners of my photobooks. The mice got hungry & couldn't find anything to eat but paper, so they ate paper. Roaches will eat paper too—& clothes!

31. ROACHES WILL ALSO EAT CLOTHING IF IT'S STORED DIRTY, if there are flood spots in it. We used to come just overnight back to the closet & take out a nice new coat or something that had one food spot on it & the roach had completely eaten out the whole food spot & the coat had a nice big hole right in the front—just overnight! Those big roaches in the Tropics, let me tell you, almost as big as mice‚ can really chew away!

32. AND IN DAMP TROPICAL COUNTRIES LIKE FLORIDA YOU COULDN'T EVEN PUT YOUR SHOES IN THE BOTTOM OR A DARK CLOSET for as much as a week, or when you pulled them out to put on your nice new shoes you had‚ they were all covered with green mold, some of which stained & you could never get the spots off! The mold had eaten right into the leather, it was living on it! Mold is a saphrophyte. You know what a saprophyte is? Well‚ you know what a parasite is?

33. THAT'S ONE NICE THING ABOUT PLASTICS, I DON'T THINK PLASTICS EVER MOLD. Not even a bug or a saprophyte would touch a plastic as far as I know. I've never unknown bugs‚ roaches, mice, rats, saprophytes, molds, mildews, toadstools or anything to feed on plastic. Now they will eat through it to get at something inside of it it's a plastic bag or box you've got something in that they want to eat‚ but not because they like the plastic.

34. BUT ANYHOW, YOUR NICE PLASTIC FABRICS & THINGS LIKE THAT PROBABLY WON'T BE TOUCHED BY THESE MOLDS & mildews & so on‚ although it's possible that if they have a little dirt in them, just a mite of soil of any kind that you can't even see, that the mildew or mold will take up residence in the dirt spot, & then discolour the fabric, stain it or roaches eat holes in it.

35. ANY VALUABLE CLOTHING, BEDDING, THINGS LIKE THAT, WRAP THEM UP THOROUGHLY in plastic damp-proof water-proof covers so that even if your overall plastic sheet leaks & the roof leaks or the rising damp up from below, it's not going to ruin those things, & you go to unpack them a month or two later or even next year & find them all a moldy mildewed icky sticky green gooey mess, what once was good useful stuff!

36. EVEN STUFF STORED IN AN ATTIC MUST BE WELL PROTECTED if you don't want to come back & find it all rotted or mouse or month-eaten or mildewed. whatever. Attics are not always waterproof either. Roofs often leak in houses that you may live in & never even know the roof leaks‚ because it doesn't leak enough to soak clear through the ceiling‚ just enough to get things damp or wet & doesn't even always spot the ceiling in a hard rain. It may get wet up there & run off out the gutters or something or just dry up, or just soak up into your storage! So even an attic is not safe & they're notoriously full of bugs & sometimes rats & other things that will eat your storage.

37. I'LL TELL YOU, THIS WHOLE LIFE IS A FIGHT WITH CORRUPTION! It's a fight with the destroyers, & you need to take a good care of things & really keep them in use. I never heard of any furniture that is being constantly used & never stored in a dark place ever being touched by termites. It's always been furniture that's been stored away. Because apparently it has to be very quiet & very dark & unused for a long time in order to have this whole process, give the termites a chance to bore in‚ lay their eggs & hatch & all that.

38. ANYHOW, YOU'D BETTER SPRAY WOODEN FURNITURE WITH SOME KIND OF ANTI-TERMITE SPRAY so that it will give a bad taste to the termites. They have some kinds of wood that they used to sell in Florida which they called permeated wood which had been soaked in an anti–termite solution like creosote.

39. ANOTHER THING THERE ARE CERTAIN THINGS WHICH HAVE A TENDENCY TO STAY IN THAT SHAPE IF YOU STORE'M IN THE WRONG SHAPE, LIKE A HOSE. Now if you're lazy & you don't coil up your hose nicely & you just throw it in a mess & it has a bunch of kinks & it lies around that way for awhile, I mean sometimes a plastic hose even for a day or two, that kink will never come out completely, it will always be permanently kinked & you'll have a bad hose.

40. AND I'VE TOLD YOU GUYS TIME & AGAIN, NEVER USE A HOSE THAT HAS KINKS IN IT OR LOOPS OR KNOTS OR ANYTHING ELSE. Always‚ when you're through with your hose, unless you're going to use it immediately or just a few minutes later or some such, coil that those up nicely right back to the faucet & let it lie there by the faucet, & that way the next guy will have it ready to use when he's ready. And besides, it won't get out there & get run over by vehicles which sometimes can crack & break plastic or rubber hose.

41. IF YOU'RE GOING TO STORE A VEHICLE IN A DAMP SALT–AIR CLIMATE NEAR THE SEA, you had better make sure it's well covered or wrapped up, or when you come back you may find that not only everything iron is rusty, the steel parts are all rusty, the motor's all rusty, just from the damp air, but the outside of the vehicle, every chrome part & painted part & everything else is broken out in a rash of corruption, little pits where the salt air has eaten into it!

42. ANOTHER THINGS IS THE CARPETS, GOD HELP US! Carpets will terribly mildew & come out with huge big black spots & everything else from mildew & mold if not properly protected & wrapped. Did you ever notice how the people who sell carpets have them in storage when they bring them out to sell to you? You can shop through the samples that are on the floor, but when they bring you your carpet out of storage, what condition is it in? It's all wrapped up & sealed with tape completely. They didn't just wrap it up nice like that just for your benefit.

43. IT WAS WRAPPED UP LIKE THAT PROBABLY WITH SOME KIND OF A PERMEATED PAPER, a rat-resistant, bug-resistant, mildew-resistant paper which resists water & maybe is even waterproof to make sure that those valuable carpets, even cheap ones, didn't get all ruined. I guess about the only kind they didn't have to do that with is the plastic carpets‚ & nothing would touch that, not even the bugs! God doesn't seem to think much of plastics, He doesn't even seem to think they're worth destroying! Ha!

44. BUT ANOTHER THING THAT WILL RUIN RUGS IS GETTING THEM OUT OF SHAPE, In the first place, when you do store rugs, what do you do, just wad them up in a ball & throw them in someplace? What do you usually do? You roll them up! And of course your natural tendency is to roll them up just like they are on the floor, start at one end & just roll it up. But then in your next house when you unroll them, those ends stick up forever & you're forever tripping over them because you rolled them the wrong way. You rolled them with the base out instead of the nap out.

45. YOU SAY, "OH, I WAS TRYING TO PROTECT THE NICE UPPERSIDE, the nap‚ trying to protect that!" Well, you won't protect it anyhow because mold will go right through it, water will seep right through it & everything else if it isn't properly protected. But if you mess it up like you rolled up that one runner carpet out there & just throw it in with one end dangling & all wadded up, if it stays that way long, & I wouldn't be surprised right now already just from being in there maybe a week, you'll never be able to get that rug to lie down flat again unless you somehow iron it, & who wants to iron rugs!

46. AND IF YOU DIDN'T ROLL IT WITH THE NAP OUT, THE ENDS WILL BE FOREVER STICKING UP, because it's just natural for the rug if it's been in that position for a long time to want to stay in that position. The middle part can't because the ends are heavy, but when you get to the end, the ends can, they're just right at the end & they can just stick right up & you keep tripping over them, & you've got to have carpet tape or tacks to stick them down.

47. WELL, THAT'S A NICE BOON, IF YOU DIDN'T ROLL THEM UP THE RIGHT WAY YOU CAN GET YOURSELF SOME CARPET TAPE. But it's better to remember to roll your rugs up, runner rugs, whatever, nap out & then be sure they're either well-wrapped or certain well-covered. Do not stand them up on end, that'll still crush the end & get it deformed & it'll be all crinkly when you roll it out, be all a mess.

48. SO YOU SEE, GOD DOESN'T REALLY LIKE STORAGE‚ He really resists storage, & you've really got to fight it pretty hard in order to make it keep, What was it the Lord didn't like about the rich men's riches? Why is it He didn't like the rust & the corruption of it or the corrosion of it or the tarnishing of the gold & the silver? (James: Because it wasn't being used.) Exactly, it showed it was being stored away somewhere & wasn't in circulation‚ it wasn't being used.

49. BECAUSE THE MORE YOU PASS IT AROUND FROM HAND TO HAND THE MORE SHINY IT GETS! Look at some of those old coins you see. Although they seem to replace them oftener in Europe, I don't know why, they all seem to be nice & new. They don't seem to keep them in circulation if they get worn out. But goodness, we had coins in the States, quarters & nickels & dimes that were almost worn smooth! You could hardly even tell what they said on it or what picture used to be on it.

50. THE LORD DIDN'T SAY THE RICHES OF THE RICH MEN WOULD BE HELD AGAINST THEM AT THE JUDGEMENT. He said‚ "Weep & howl, ye rich men", what? (James: The rust & canker.) Yes, the rust & canker, the tarnishing of their silver & their gold. (Ja.5:3.) You say‚ "Well, I thought gold & silver never tarnished!" Didn't you ever hear about the maid that always had to polish the silver? You put even silver away long enough it will get dull. And even gold gets a little bit dull & you take it to the jeweler & he will put this special stuff on it & it brightens it up again.

51. SO HE SAYS IT'S NOT THE GOLD & THE SILVER THAT HE WOULD HOLD AGAINST THE RICH MEN‚ but if he caught it getting tarnished, rusty or corrupted‚ or corroded like iron & steel. Rust & other things corrode. You notice these outside door handles? Look at the difference between them & the ones inside. You know what's the matter with the outside ones? They're all corroded from salt sea air!

52. WELL, I'LL TELL YOU, THE RUST & THE CORRUPTION OF YOUR RICHES, THAT'S WHAT GOD WILL HOLD AGAINST YOU! You know what He's going to hold against you? That mildew, that moss that grew on the stones, that rust on the steel, that tarnish on the gold & silver, that mold, & the termites. He's going to hold those against you!—Because of disuse!

53. DON'T BLAME HIM, HE CREATED THEM TO DESTROY WHAT YOU DIDN'T USE or let somebody else use, & He's going to blame you for the rust & the corrosion & the tarnish & the mildew & the mold & the bugs & the termites & the roaches! If you don't keep a clean house, of course you'll have roaches! If you don't keep a clean house you'll also have mice If you keep leaving food around & dirty floors of crumbs & food on the sink & dirty dishes in the sink at night‚ of course you're going to have bugs!

54. GOD CREATED THEM TO EAT UP WHAT YOU WEREN'T USING, eat the garbage, & if you leave the garbage on the floor & the sink or on the sideboard or the kitchen table or the dining room table‚ God's garbagemen are going to come out to night & try to clean it up, what you failed to clean up, believe it or not! What do you think of that?

55. BUT GOD'S GOING TO BLAME YOU IF YOU STORE STUFF & IT GETS RUINED & THERE'S A LOSS! It's your loss & the Family's loss because you could have shared it, given it to others. Did you know that when Jeth & Deb left South America they had the nerve to leave 48 trunks of everything you can possibly imagine! They had trunks & trunks of just kitchenware & dishes & things that were given to the Family & supposed to be distributed to the Colonies, they had stacked it all up & stored it themselves for themselves!

56. TRUNKS OF BEDDING! TRUNKS OF HOUSEHOLD GOODS THAT THEY SHOULD HAVE GIVEN AWAY TO THOSE POOR INDIANS IN PERU & shared it at least with the poor Family, the Homes! 48 trunks besides a mountain of luggage that they took with them! Think of that! And then they had the nerve to ask us to ship them the 48 trunks in rich United States! I told the people responsible, forget it! Forget it! The Stuff probably all belongs to the Family anyhow & we're certainly not going to pay for 48 trunks shipped to them in rich America where they don't need it when those poor Indians right there in Peru could use it & certainly the Family Homes!

57. SO DON'T BE A STORER! I've had to kiss my stuff goodbye so many times, but the Lord always gives me more & I have to just keep forsaking all & keep getting rid of stuff because He keeps piling it on! Don't worry about not having it, keeping it, don't worry about storing it, He'll give you more.

58. I JUST QUIT CARRYING ALL THAT JUNK AROUND! All my personal goods are packed in one briefcase, one baggy dufflebag maybe some of you have seen, & one old shopping bag & one small box of books that I usually leave behind to catch up with me later, & a few hang-ups. That's not habits, but in our language it means the clothes that you have to leave on hangers.

59. ON OUR YEAR'S JOURNEY AROUND THE COUNTRY WE USED TO LIMIT HANG-UPS FOR EVERYBODY TO NO MORE THAN THREE INCHES THICK‚ that was the limit of clothes, you could hang up. Well, you couldn't hang up more than about one suit & a couple of pairs of pants & a sweater or two‚ or a jacket, & that was it. And that's really about all I generally take with me & use.

60. BUT SOMETIMES YOU GET STUCK MAYBE BETWEEN HOUSES like we did & you need to store these items someplace. You've got to move out of one place before you can get into the other & you have to stick it in storage somewhere, particularly house items such as lamps, rugs, beds, furniture & whatnot.

61.—AND WINTERCLOTHING, THAT'S SOMETHING THAT'S A NECESSITY. You certainly don't wear it in the Summer at all, therefore normally you don't want to carry it along with you in the Summer. It's maybe an extra trunk or an extra suitcase of clothing for a family. So it's a good idea to have someplace to store it, leave it with friends or another home or some folks who can ship it to you when the time comes & when you know where you're going to be for the Winter‚ which might be a lot of different places, & you wouldn't want to haul it around all Summer long waiting for Winter.

62. THE LESS SPACE YOU HAVE‚ IN SOME WAYS THE BETTER OFF YOU ARE because you just can't carry any more than you've got space for, & then you will only carry what you absolutely need & have to have, & not a lot of other junk that you may think you might use someday or you might get around to reading you might get around the reading someday or you might happen to need someday or you might need next year or all that sort of thing.

63. OK‚ SO MUCH FOR STORAGE, PTL! Maybe I should cook up one little saying that you'll never forget. I already said he that keeps storage, I might say too long, is fighting the laws of God! So he who keeps storage breaks God's laws of sharing!

64. IT IS GOD'S PRINCIPLE‚ HIS NATURAL LAW, A NATURAL LAW OF HIS ECONOMICS to make it as difficult for you as possible to store anything away for any length of time & not use it. It will be rusted or corrupted or stolen or something—if not stolen by actual human thieves, stolen by little rats & mice & rodents & bugs, all thieves—& rusted & corrupted by saphrodytes or plain metallic rust.

65. SO TO TRY TO DEFEAT THE LORD'S PURPOSE IN TRYING TO PREVENT YOU FROM STORING THINGS, YOU HAVE TO REALLY WORK AGAINST GOD'S ECONOMY & GOD'S NATURAL LAWS & God's thieves & His rusts, & try to keep that stuff as dry as you can & as tightly boxed & packaged & covered as you can to keep both the damp & the bugs & the rats & the thieves & the molds & the mildews etc. out, & give them no chance to grow & no way to grow. And as you're doing it, remember every time that you are guilty of fighting God's natural laws of not storing things & putting things away there they'll do nobody any good!

66. GOD HAS HIS JUDGEMENTS & HE'LL JUDGE YOU FOR STORING STUFF YOU DON'T NEED & AREN'T GOING TO NEED! He knows whether you're going to get to use it or anybody's going to get to use it, & if you don't use it or see that somebody else uses it or keep it in circulation & in use, He'll see to it that it's destroyed no matter how hard you work on it! He's not going to let you save it for yourself selfishly.

67. AND YET MOST OF THE WORLD IS WORKING LIKE MAD TRYING TO SAVE THINGS & KEEP THINGS! Some men & women spend most of their lives working on their house or their car, polishing & shining & preserving & trying to keep it, right? Keep it from rusting away or rotting away, trying to preserve the furniture. I mean‚ that's their big fight constantly to try to preserve it‚ maintain it, while God's trying to tear it down & tear it us because that's what they traded God for!

68. IT'S A STRANGE THING ABOUT DUST, "from dust thou art & unto dust thou shalt return", & the same goes for a house, unoccupied. Did you ever notice that when some people leave their houses they cover all the furniture with furniture covers? It doesn't matter if there's no wind, no breeze, no body in there, the house, like your body is just gradually decaying & even the paint on the ceiling is gradually sluffing off, crumbling constantly & just settles down on the floor & furniture.

69. IF YOU'RE GOING TO STORE THINGS & YOU WANT TO SEE THEM AGAIN & you want to use them again—of course if you're not apt to use them again, you don't really need to store them—maybe somebody else could have better use of them. if you don't want to be bothered with lugging them around, it's better just to give them away. I'm a great one on just giving stuff away‚ throwing it away, get rid of it, & lay aside every weight that I may run the next race to the next place. (Heb.12:1.)

70. HELP THESE‚ LORD, TO NOT KEEP ANYTHING THEY'RE NOT REALLY USING or aren't absolutely sure they're going to use immediately or very soon, or definitely maybe clothing for next Winter, whatever it is, unless they know definitely, Lord, they're going to use it soon. Help them not to keep lugging it around & loading down the vehicles with it until it just nearly flattens the tires & wears us out moving it!

71. HELP THEM, LORD, TO TRY TO ELIMINATE STUFF THAT THEY DON'T ACTUALLY NEED & TO HAVE, cut it down, like we have, to just a few personal things & the vital necessary equipment, the tools we use for office work & so on, our work of various kinds & the things we absolutely have to have every place we set up again & stop & live for awhile.

72. PLEASE, LORD‚ HELP THEM TO GET RID OF JUNK THAT'S NON–ESSENTIAL & not immediately useful & not likely to be used for a long time. Help them Lord, to try to whittle down their luggage & their clothes & their books & their belongings & storage so we won't have to have any storage, or at least as little as possible if we do have to store it any length of time at all.

73. THANK YOU FOR THE STORAGE THAT WE DID HAVE & WAS VERY USEFUL & we did need immediately again as soon as we got a house, to furnish it better with the things that we need like carpets & some bedding‚ Lord, & lamps‚ etc. Help us to keep it to these absolute essentials that sometimes are not very plentiful in a rented house, & try to eliminate the big heavy stuff that we can do without, Lord.

74. SO HELP US, LORD, NOT TO JUST TAKE ALONG STUFF THAT WE CAN USE & IS NICE TO HAVE that if we have it we will use it, but only the things that we absolutely have to have & cannot do without & are absolute necessities & which we can not live nor work without.—Not just a bunch of stuff, Lord, that's nice to have & useful it we've got it, but which we could do without if we had to.

75. HELP US, LORD‚ TO KEEP THESE RULES IN MIND WHEN WE THINK ABOUT MOVING & THINK ABOUT STORAGE, & help us if we do have some things that have to be kept for future use when we know we will need them, then help us to learn to store them properly & be good stewards of Thy goods‚ take good care of them & store them & protect them from moth & rust that corrupt & thieves that break through & steal, & keep them in a dry place well covered & packaged & in the proper shape & form & well-protected from all material goods' enemies—dampness, bugs, rodents, termites, molds, mildews & all the other things that ruin the material goods, storage stored in the dark & the damp.

76. HELP US, LORD, IN JESUS' NAME NOT TO STORE ANYTHING UNLESS WE ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO, & not to take anything with us unless we absolutely have to have it, & to remember Thy law that the rust & corruption & mold of these things will be a testimony against us because we stored it, we didn't need it, & because we didn't need it & never used it & never let anybody else use it, & it got ruined! You're going to blame us for it, Lord, because it was ruined instead of giving it away, selling it, sharing with others or using it ourselves.

77. YOU'RE AGAINST STORAGE USUALLY EXCEPT, LORD, FOR PERHAPS EMERGENCIES LIKE OUR SURVIVAL FOOD & THINGS LIKE THAT. Sometimes we've even lately been wondering about that, Lord. You feed the beasts of the field & the birds of the air. You told the disciples not to worry about what they should eat or what they should put on or what they should be clothed with or what they should drink.

78. YOU SAID‚ "BEHOLD THE FOWLS OF THE AIR, not one falleth but what your Heavenly Father knoweth it! Behold the lilies of the field, Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these! Seek ye first the Kingdom of God & His righteousness & all these other things shall be added unto you!" (Mt. 6:25-33.)

79. THEY WERE TO GO OUT HAVING ALMOST NOTHING, LORD, & expecting it to be supplied on the way by those that had it, probably by the rich who stored it‚ & when they came along & saw here was somebody they could give it to, share it with, they gave it to'm!

80. WE'RE TO EXPECT TO YOU, LORD, TO PROVIDE FOR US AS WE GO‚ so we don't have to take it all with us. We have certain specialised items that we have to take with us because most people don't have'm & we can't borrow'm, or they're not going to give them to us at each new place we live, so we have to take'm along, our special equipment, Lord, & our own personal clothing & some special things, Lord‚ Thy Word, the RDs, etc.

81. BUT HELP US‚ LORD, TO KEEP THE QUANTITY & THE BURDEN DOWN, to lay aside every weight that we don't need so we can run the race a little faster & it won't be such hard work for the boys when we move & it won't be so much trouble, it won't be so likely to get damaged in storage. Help us‚ Lord, in Jesus' name to remember that usually You're against storage & Your natural laws are against storage & You've created natural enemies of storage & You will even judge us by our storage, in Jesus' name. Amen. PTL! TYJ! Amen? (Family: Amen!) Will He judge you for storage?

82. GBY! YOU'RE DISMISSED, FORGIVE ME FOR TAKING SO MUCH OF YOUR TIME, but for your benefit & the Family you needed it, & if this can benefit the rest of the Family I know it's worth it. God only knows how much stuff we've lost & the Family has lost, stuff even I know about, just through storage, because they didn't know how to store it, & came back & it was ruined so nobody got the benefit of it! It would have been so much better to give it away.

83. AND VEHICLES! AFTER WE MOVED FROM TSC WE HAD AN ENTIRE LOT CALLED GREEN ACRES FULL OF OLD ROTTING VEHICLES! We weren't on the Road anymore, we didn't use them anymore, so they just sat there & rusted away. And a lot of them weren't repaired & needed fixing & nobody to fix them & one poor guy got his back broken trying to fix them! God was sick of our storage!

84. I'M SURE THAT THE FAMILY HAS WASTED A LOT OF THINGS THROUGH STORAGE, which instead of just storing & letting it get ruined, they could have given away & let somebody use it, let somebody have it, shared it with others, other Homes, other members of the Family.

85. THAT'S OF COURSE WHERE YOU OUGHT TO GIVE YOUR STORAGE FIRST OF ALL IF YOU CAN FORSAKE IT, GIVE IT TO OTHERS IN THE FAMILY. And if you haven't got some poor Family members that need it, then give it to the poor neighbours or just leave it for the poor landlord.—Ha! After all, these poor rich people that have empty houses that they have to rent‚ they always need things to furnish them, So PTL! GBY! I guess that's all.

86. BY THE WAY, YOU BOYS THAT TAKE CARE OF THE LAWN, I NOTICED OUT IN THE GARAGE THERE'S ONE OF THOSE NICE LONG SPRAY HOSES. one of those that lie flat & they have little holes in the top, & these lawns around here could sure stand some spraying. I'd like to see that thing in operation every day just like we did where we were before where we had the sprinkler‚ these could stand some spraying. And it'll be good for several reasons.—It'll be used &

87. IT'LL NOT ONLY BRING THE GRASS BACK TO LIFE & LOOK NICE & GREEN INSTEAD OF BROWN, but it will keep down the dust as well & it will also keep us cooler. Maybe in the Winter time we won't need it, but right now get those hoses out please & let me see you boys water a little bit everyday. You don't have to worry about the weeds & stuff outside the fence, although it would look nicer if you could cut'm down & water that a bit too so it could turn to green grass.

88. IF THE GRASS IS ALIVE AT ALL OR SOME SEED OR ANYTHING STILL THERE IN THE ROOTS, you can sometimes bring it back to life like we did in our last place. It was all brown & looked dead when we got there but by the time we'd sprinkled it was as green as the greatest grass & looked beautiful! If we'd stayed there much longer we'd have had to start mowing! Anyway please do some watering!

89. DON'T WORRY ABOUT DOWN THE DRIVEWAY, FORGET IT. Although, some places it might look a little bit better if you'd mow down a few of those weeds, it would look better from the street where people can see it. They won't think much of the people who live here if they look like they're living in a jungle! Despite the fact that you tell them you like things in the natural state, they're apt to be like the farmer I told you about that was bragging about his farm & showing the preacher around.

90. THE PREACHER SAID, "MY, WHAT A LOVELY FARM THE LORD HAS GIVEN YOU!" But the old farmer was apparently somewhat of a sceptic so he said, "Yeah, but you should have seen it when the Lord had it!" Ha! In other words, before the started clearing the timber & mowing the fields & taking care of it. Even the Garden of Eden had to have somebody taking care of it! He put Adam & Eve in there to keep & to tend it! (Gen.2:15.)

91. THE LORD EXPECTED MAN TO IMPROVE ON HIS CREATION. He expected you to mow the grass & make it look nice, prune the trees‚ trim the hedges & clear away the weeds & improve things. He left a little bit for you to do. Otherwise you'd have gotten so damn lazy you'd be in all kinds of mischief! Idleness is the Devil's workshop! In fact, after the Curse He even sent all kinds of new pests to cause you trouble to keep you working so hard & so busy you wouldn't have time to get into any mischief or much strength left to do much damage!—Ha!

92.—AND YOU'RE NOT GONNA HAVE MUCH STORAGE LEFT IT YOU DON'T TAKE CARE OF IT!—It'd be better to give it away! Share it! Use it!—Or let somebody else use it!—Even if you only loan it to'm! Keep it in use!—Don't store it if you can help it!

93. STORAGE IS DEFYING GOD'S LAWS OF SHARING & USEFULNESS! Give it away today! Tomorrow may be too late! It may be a rotten mess nobody can use!—Or be destroyed with the rotten North! Leave it! Forsake it! Go South today!—Amen?

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family