A friend of mine in the computer business recently gave me some old broken hard drives.  Why?  Because I’m a nerd who builds custom lightsabers for fun.  If you’re geeky enough that you want to know more about “saber smithing” you can see a video about it here.  Anyway, inside most hard drives are some cool little parts that make great looking lightsaber components.  Since these hard drives were just going to be thrown away I couldn’t wait to rip them apart and harvest the pieces I needed.

My two youngest sons (Landry and Hayden) watched intently as I tore apart these hard drives, and they decided they wanted to play with all the parts I didn’t need.  Soon they began arguing over who got to keep which broken-old-hard-drive-parts, so I had to divide the pieces up between them fairly.  They pretended they were scientists and engineers.  They imagined that they were giants watching over tiny little cities (circuit boards look kind of like very small cities after all).  They played like some of the parts were medical instruments, and then they took the magnetic parts and put them on the refrigerator.

I was amazed to watch these kids ignore their piles of toys, video games, DVDs and books just to play with busted computer junk!

This made me think:  how often do we pursue owning the best things and miss out on even better things?  My children made me realize that happiness doesn’t come from having the best things, it comes from making the most of things.

Lord, make me content like my kids.  Help me to see beauty in things that look like junk to everyone else.  Help me experience the best life has to offer as I make the most of the people, experiences and things you’ve put in my path.