1 Timothy 6:6-8 Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the word, and we can't take anything with us when we leave it. So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content.
My Thoughts
I remember one of my most favorite times in life was when my kids were little, when they had not started school yet. We were just content. We didn't need much, we had unhooked the TV so that they would learn to love books, and so we would not get so caught up in TV we missed out on them. We spent time with family and friends and went to church. There were no strangers telling us what we needed and what we had was enough. The kids had "enough" clothes, they didn't need many. After all we were not comparing them to the kids around them, we were just making sure they were warm and clean and well fed. We were content. They were content. We felt rich in all things that mattered, we were rich in love. I never think of those days without smiling.
Then they started school, and we started thinking they needed what the other kids had. We thought we needed a bigger house, I thought I needed to go back to work. Then after several years in school we got busy, busy, busy... keeping up...with the world. We even turned the TV back on ... and on it there were commercials telling us that we needed even more. Life got way to busy, and at times we felt like we didn't have enough. That we couldn't do enough for our kids. We lost our way. We lost our way by trying to fit into the world. We wanted the best for our children.... and by trying to give them "the best" we ran out of enough time to show love the best way you can show love, with your time. We got to busy trying to show love with what we were able to do. All along we loved our kids and each other...but we get busy trying to meet the needs of our kids through what the world said they needed instead of meeting the needs of our kids through what God teaches us we need. Love and just enough food, just enough clothes, learning to be content with what we have...and the time to share the love that we feel for each other.
We are fast approaching the Holiday season... and I say Holiday season because we treat it like the world would have us treat it. We change our lives for a year so we can give people things, things that we will still be put in their closets, things that won't change the lives of the recipient but change our budgets for a whole year. Things that often we don't even remember next year. We get so super busy during the Holidays buying "love" for that special moment of gift opening, that we spend 2 months without any time to show love. And often we spend months before or months after in worry about how we will pay for that moment of "love." We spend so much time and money on that "magic moment" that we lose out on may magic moments. Why? Because we have lost sight on how to be content with what we have, we are consumed with what others around us have and we want the same. We have gotten so caught up in the world that when others don't have what we have we judge them instead of making sure that they have enough to be content too. We spend so much time keeping up, that we stress ourselves for a year over a day that should be a celebration of LOVE not things.
In America we have so much that we have lost sight of what enough really is. And this verse tells us that enough to eat and "enough" clothes (probably to keep clean) is enough. It also tells us to learn to be contentment with what we have is great wealth.
When I was a little girl, a happy little girl, my mom and dad and I lived in a 4 room house. It had two bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen and one bathroom...oh, and a small sun porch, I forgot about that room. Nothing about it was big or fancy...the closets were tiny...and when I started school we filled my closet with 5 new outfits for school... one for each day of the week. When I look back on perfect I see that little house with my mom and dad and me. I believe that when my kids look back on "perfect" they see us in our double-wide mobel home, with me at home and no TV and just enough clothes. The days of contentment and time to show the love we so deeply felt...the love we so deeply feel.
God knows what makes us truly happy! Loving and depending on Him, loving each other and being content with what we have. God knows what makes us feel truly wealthy, love for Him and each other and contentment with what we have. We just need to listen.
No comments:
Post a Comment