A Lesson On Materialism

Serbia taught us a lot, but one of the lessons we learned was a lesson on materialism. Many Americans don't know this, but what we consider poverty, is NOT poverty by the world's standards. We are so blessed in this country with so many material things. So, why is it that depression is on the rise? Could it be that we are clinging so tightly to all this "stuff" that we let it get in the way of our relationship with God? I know if I had less "stuff" in my house, I would have less to clean up and organize and more time to spend in prayer and reading my Bible. It's a bit unsettling that I have so many "things" in just one room in my house that I can't even count them. Try it...try to count all the things in just one room. For most of us, it would take a while and we would probably give up before we finished. Why are we so materialistic? We might say "because we are Americans and that is just the way we live." That is about as frustrating as hearing a Serbian say "I am Orthodox because I am Serbian and that's just the way it is."

Is it time for a change? We think so. I get so frustrated with our electric bill each month, but if it weren't for all this "stuff," we could live in a smaller house and pay much less for electricity! Today, our family began to take action. For the next several weeks, we will have Matthew 6:19-20 posted on the mantle as we go through all this "stuff". Today we went through our movies and books. Why did we have over 100 DVDs? I didn't count them, but it was at least 100. There aren't enough hours in a week to watch all those movies! Some of them we haven't watched in years. So, we decided to share. We kept about 20 DVDs that we watch the most and are donating the rest to the local library. If we feel the need to watch one of those, we can simply go down to the library and check it out for FREE! So, now we get to benefit others and we can still watch them if we want to. We did the same with books. We selected a few to keep on hand and are taking the rest to the library. We've already read most of them, so what good are they sitting on our shelf? And to make it even better, most of them are Christian books and it's been my experience that the library doesn't have a great selection of those. So, now hundreds or thousands of people can read those books that were sitting on our bookshelf collecting dust. (On a side note, I thought it was pretty funny when I pulled a bookmark from a book I am donating and it said on it "Simplify" and at the bottom it says "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." -Jesus Matthew 6:34

We aren't trying to rub this in anyone's face and say we are "holier than thou" or anything like that. I just thought I'd share this with others who may not have looked at it in this way before. We will not look down at anyone because of their possessions and will probably even continue to have more than many others do. It will be a process to untrain ourselves from the materialistic lifestyle we have always led. We just decided it was time for a change in our life. If we can get rid of some of the "stuff" that holds us back, we will begin to spend more time with our kids and with the Lord. That is our goal...to make our life less complicated by material things so we will be more free to grow closer to God and our kids. If anyone wants to join us in the fight against materialism in your home, let us know and we can talk and support one another.

Now, it's off to the closet where, once again, I cannot count the number of items in it. Yikes!