"It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others." A.Holmes

Saturday, July 12, 2008

I Shall Not Want

My daughter and I were watching one of our favorite shows the other night as we were timing her contractions, the show is 'House Hunters', we watched another after that called "Property Virgins". It is kind of a way to be a looky lou without having to leave the living room. The families on the show are house hunting. The show usually begins with the family showing their current residence and discussing its faults and the reason they need a new residence. Right away the premise gets me pondering the reason for discontent because usually the current home is way more than adequate for most families in the WORLD !As the show proceeds the prospective home buyers check out homes in their price range , again, more money than most people in the WORLD have to spend, and the people discuss the problems the potential new home has. Usually not enough bedrooms, less than the 4 they already have, not a big enough or updated enough kitchen,again the one they own is more than big enough for most people, and so on and so on.Oh, and let's not forget..a pool is a necessity of life too, gotta have the pool and perfectly landscaped yard. The families also are usually parents of 2 children, maybe 3 and each child needs his or her own room, Dad needs an office, as does Mom...yada yada yada. My reaction is sometimes surprising to me, I find I begin to think that "Yeah, we NEED a bigger place with a bigger kitchen and dining room. We NEED ......and you know, we WOULD use it for God, really we would! Please, please, can I have it? And thus the seeds of discontent and dissatisfaction are sown and if left unchecked grow to be giant , weedy trees that affect every aspect of my life. All from a little show. And lets not forget the magazines, those alluring and tempting little enchantresses. So pretty, and I can spend a lot of time poring over them and just dreaming of the projects I can do and the furniture I should buy and....you get the picture. I am not going to stop reading the magazines, they have provided a lot of wonderful and useful ideas. I will still watch a 'House Hunters' now and then, but my attitude needs to be firmly rooted in the knowledge of Gods most abundant and amazing provisions. I have way more than I ever dreamed I would in this life and way more than I deserve.Contentment truly is the realization of what God has richly given us, His Son...His mercy and grace, sufficient for all! "What you have in your shepherd is greater than what you don't have in life." Max Lucado "But godliness is actually a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. " I Timothy 6:6

2 comments:

Lanny said...

Listened to a radio interview with the author of a book on true happiness last Friday. He found in all his research that no matter what level of earning we are at we desire forty percent more than we have. And no matter what we have most people are not happy even when they accumulate what they thought they wanted last we just then go to a new forty percent level. He claimed it is something hormonal in the human brain but then he said that truly happy peole train themselves to deny what the hormones make you think you want.

Lanny said...

Congratulations Kathy, to you and your whole family, on the birth of your new grandson, Joey!