The Christian Case for Owning Less

I stood in front of my storage unit last month and tried to remember what was inside.

I couldn't.

Two hundred and forty dollars a month. For three years. Boxes I haven't opened. A bike I haven't ridden since my fifties. A dining set my grandmother gave us when we got married — beautiful, solid oak, the kind they don't make anymore. We have a dining set. It's been in that unit for nine years.

That's $8,640 to store furniture we don't use, books I won't read again, and tools I forgot I owned.

I'm not telling you that to brag about my discovery. I'm telling you because I think a lot of us are doing some version of this. And we're calling it normal.

There are more self-storage facilities in America than McDonald's restaurants. I had to read that twice. We've built an entire industry around the things we own but don't use — and we pay rent on it every month, like we're feeding a small mortgage to keep our excess alive.

Somewhere along the way, owning more got confused with living more.

Bigger house. Newer truck. The garage that started out for the car and ended up for the boxes. The second freezer in the basement. The third TV. The closet that requires a system to navigate.

I don't think any of this is sinful. Stuff is just stuff. But I've started to wonder if we're all carrying something Jesus tried to warn us about — and we're so used to the weight that we can't feel it anymore.

He said this in Matthew 6:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven… For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Matthew 6:19–21

Read that last sentence again. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Jesus isn't saying owning things is wrong. He's saying owning things shapes us. The stuff we accumulate has a gravity. It pulls our attention, our time, our affection. We don't just have it — it has us.

I felt that pull standing in front of that storage unit. Some part of me didn't want to open the door because I knew what I'd find: things I once thought I needed, hoarded against a someday that never came.

Here's what I'm starting to believe, late in my fifties, with retirement coming on like a slow sunrise.

The point of owning less isn't to be impressive. It isn't to post a tidy minimalist kitchen on Instagram. It isn't to prove anything to anyone.

The point is freedom.

Freedom to move when God says move. Freedom to give when God says give. Freedom to spend an afternoon with your wife on the porch instead of organizing the garage again. Freedom to say yes to a hike, a grandchild, a neighbor who needs a hand — because your life isn't being slowly absorbed by the upkeep of things.

Jesus said it plainer in Luke 12:

“Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

Luke 12:15

I used to read that and nod. Sure. Of course. As if it didn't apply to me because I wasn't rich. But greed isn't only about wanting more. Sometimes greed is just refusing to let go of what you already have.

I'm preaching to myself here. I want to be honest about that.

So what does this look like, practically?

I emptied the storage unit. Some of it went to our daughter. Some of it went to a young couple at church who'd just bought their first house. Most of it went to Goodwill. The grandmother's dining set found a home with a niece who actually has the room for it — and that felt right. Things should be used, not warehoused.

We're slowly working through the house too. Not a purge. A reckoning. Asking each thing a question my wife came up with: does this serve the life we're trying to build, or the life we used to have?

It's a slower process than I expected. There's grief in it sometimes — letting go of a thing means letting go of the version of yourself who needed it. But there's lightness too. A real kind of lightness. The kind I haven't felt in years.

If you're standing in front of your own storage unit — literal or otherwise — I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'm not your pastor and I'm not your conscience.

But come with me for a minute. Sit with the question.

What are you paying to keep that you no longer need? What's quietly absorbing your time, your attention, your money — and giving you very little back? What might God be inviting you to release, so you can carry something better into the next chapter?

I don't have it all figured out. Not even close. But I'm starting to think the Christian case for owning less is really just a case for being free.

Free to follow. Free to love. Free to finish well.

God bless,
Paul