Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Living with Excess


So Sunday was a busy day for us. We went to the Twins game and saw the Angels play the Twins (the Twins won) and Sam thought he was in seventh heaven! It was a fun game. Afterwards he got to run the bases and see the field up close which of course for him was the "ultimate".

Sunday night we had a musician, Shaun Groves (http://www.shaungroves.com/) , leading worship at our church. If you've never heard his music, it is definitely well worth your time. He is a singer/songwrite that definitely touches my heart everytime I hear him. Shaun was doing a tour for Compassion International, an organization that works to sponsor children in Third World countries to help them get the food they need, necessary basic medical care, and help they hear the Gospel - it is a great organization and on his current tour he is touring for the purpose of gaining sponsors for these kids, paying his own way and traveling around the US to raise awareness. It was a good cause.

As I was listening to him talk about Compassion I was struck by some of the things he was saying. One of which was thinking about what a society of "excess" we live in. He referred to the story in Exodus in which God tells the Israelites to go out each morning and collect the manna, but to collect just enough for the "daily bread". When they don't they find out the excess goes bad - they just don't need the extra, they need to be confidant that God will provide what they need each day, and quite hoarding all the extras.

That's pretty hard for us to do isn't it? Yet if we, especially in America could do this, there would probably be very few people who would have to go hungry. It's amazing to me that our houses just keep getting bigger, and as Shaun said, the thing we are adding the most of to our houses is storage area. Think about it - more places to store our "Extra junk" - our leftovers. Doesn't that seem ridiculous when you really think about - we have so much extra we don't know what to do with it or where to put it, and our neighbors around the world don't even know where their next meal will come from.

We have been preparing for a garage sale at our house, trying to purge some of the "extras" we have and looking at it kind of makes me sad. Do we really need all of that stuff? What does all the stuff get in the way of? Yet, I still find myself comparing myself to my neighbors and what they have and thinking I don't have enough sometimes spinning myself into financial messes because of it.

What a crazy world - somehow I think it is not at all as God intended it to be.

1 comment:

  1. I have to say I think about this a lot. I even EAT extra. So many people don't have enough to eat, and I'm making myself unhealthy by eating more than I need. sheesh. I think God will hold us accountable for how we use the resources he blesses us with. I really need to do better. Thank goodness for repentance, forgiveness, and progression. :)

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