Are You Rich?

1 Timothy 4:6  But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8 But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.

Are you broke yet?

With all the Christmas shopping going on, it’s hard to stay on budget. 

Steve and Micah have already encouraged us to slow down, take the hectic out of the holiday, and meditate on what it’s really all about.  I’d like to take this opportunity to remind us of how blessed we are, even as the over-emphasis on material trappings (interesting word in this context – trappings) of this time of year seek to cloud our vision and rob us of contentment.  You may have heard what follows before but it’s worth repeating.  We can so easily lose perspective in this culture.  We are the proverbial frogs that slowly get the heat turned up around us until we’re boiling to death and we didn’t even realize it.  WAKE UP!

If you are an American, you are rich.  If you have electricity, are able to purchase food at a grocery store without having to own land, plant, and harvest your own, own a cell phone, go to the bathroom indoors and have a toilet to flush, have running hot and cold water, live in a place that has a refrigerator, own clothes that you did not weave or kill an animal to get, you are rich.  If you have a computer, air conditioning, central heating, an automobile, live in a dwelling that’s more than 500 square feet, you are super rich.

It wasn’t that long ago that there was no air conditioning and heat came from a fireplace, not piped into your bedroom. 

The majority of people around the world – billions of them – have very few of the luxuries that American’s possess.  What does it mean when one of our greatest health problems is obesity?  We’re too rich for our own good.  Storage facilities populate the landscape of our cities to hold possessions that we can’t fit in our homes and apartments.  

Are you rich?

The answer is not as dependant on your checking account balance as it is on your perspective.