Thinking About Things

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.  So we can confidently say, The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me? – Hebrews 13:5-6

Be content with you have.  If I were going to get a tattoo, I would have that statement tattooed on my right hand, but I’m content with my right hand the way it is.  Sufficient in itself, to be content with what we have has a corollary, I suppose, of being content with what we don’t have, and we ought to be content with what other people have. 

Probably one of the biggest lies we tell ourselves is that, while we aren’t content with what we have now, if only we get X, we will be.  It doesn’t work that way.  Contentment is never a function of our possessions.  Contentment grows out of trust and confidence.  When we know who we are and what we are, when we are certain that we are loved, when we are convinced of the power and presence of God, we are content.  It doesn’t mean that we don’t work and strive to improve ourselves in the sense of becoming better people or in helping and supporting others.  It means that we are no longer anxious and overly concerned about how things will work out. 

We can get so caught up in the bad news and the dire situations and the catastrophic events we witness that we forget that we abide in Christ and He in us.  So I got one side of my head saying, You’re a Christian; you believe God is all-powerful; stop fretting.  The other side is going on about the national debt and hyper-inflation and bankruptcy and Ebola and beheadings, global warming and the dangers of antiperspirants versus being shunned for body odor.  We are worried about what the neighbors might think.  Shoot, sometimes I worry about being worried.   

If I was happier when I had less stuff it was probably because I spent less time and trouble and money taking care of it.  Right now, among other things, I need to build a new shed to put some of my equipment in and have more room to work on my equipment.  Or, I could try to get rid of some of it, but then when the twice-per-decade need arose for it, I’d probably go out and buy another one.  It’s always a trade-off.  When you ain’t got nothin’, you ain’t got nothin’ to lose.  Conversely, you ain’t got nothin’.

I have looked at an empty refrigerator, bare shelves, and a zero bank balance.  It was a learning experience.  God got me through it.  I’m still here with all I need and then some.  If, from the world’s perspective, I’m ever down to nothing again, I’ll still have the Lord.   

The past has brought us to now.  The future is always being created now.  It kind of makes me think now is pretty important.  Anxiety and discontentment ruin new for us.  The only way to have joy in the Lord is to have it now.   

Tidal Island

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”   Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.  The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.  So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. – John 8:31-36

In the R.L. Stevenson novel Kidnapped, the protagonist and narrator is a youth of about 17 or 18 named David Balfour.  He is the rightful heir of an estate called Shaws but is betrayed into captivity by his deceitful uncle.  Imprisoned on a ship headed for the American colonies, David is to be sold into indentured servitude in the Carolinas.  As the result of some weather-related delays, accidents, and the loss of the ship’s first officer and navigator in a fight, the ship is wrecked upon a rock in the Hebrides near the island of Mull, also known as Ross.  David, who cannot swim -- being, as he says “inland bred” from the Scottish lowlands, goes overboard to certain death except for being able to grab a portion of the broken vessel’s yardarm.  With this aid, he reaches shore on a rocky, barren tidal islet called Earraid. 

Earraid is separated from the inhabited parts of Mull by what appears to David to be an impassable strait of the sea.  Being unable to swim and having lost his flotation device, he remains stranded for four days without shelter, fire, or food, apart from raw shell fish.  He can see the roofs of a town and smoke rising from houses, but he is isolated and increasingly hopeless.  He is seen by some men in a boat.  They react to his plight by laughing, which he cannot understand.  Finally, they return with another man who knows some English – these are mostly Gaelic speakers.   They bring the boat close enough that David makes out the word, “Tide.”  His mind is opened, he runs to the strait, and, with the tide out, he crosses with no trouble onto the main island.  He concludes that his lack of understanding and reasoning nearly killed him:  I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both; and I believe they both get paid in the end; but the fools first.

Truth is always and everywhere the cure for bondage.  Whether we are fooled by others or fool ourselves, illusions are the chains that bind us and the whips that drive and torment us.  While we live, if we know the secret, we may be free, and, so knowing, we know as well, we live always. 

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:5-6)

The Crabgrass Monologue

Not that in respect of want I say it, for I did learn in the things in which I am -- to be content — Philippian 4:11

Charles Spurgeon, in talking about Philippians 4:11, quotes a proverb: Ill weeds grow apace. Discontent is like dandelions. Complaints are like crabgrass. If we are going to have a decent lawn or garden, it requires cultivation. We have to work to have beautiful flowers or fruits and vegetables.

Paul says, I did learn ... to be content. To be content is to be contained. The desires of the contented are contained by what they already have. Not everyone is, or should be, content at the same level, but we can all learn to create boundaries for our desires and to live within the restraints of those fences.

I think it was probably back in the late 1800's that a young man left the Ozarks and made his way to Idaho. He herded sheep for several years and saved all he possibly could of his wages. He wore the same pair of shoes the entire time, wiring the soles to the uppers as the stitching gave way. According to the legend, when he returned from the West, he left what remained of that pair of shoes, and someone put them in the window of a shop. He used the money he had saved to buy a decent little farm. Then he bought another, and another. When he was asked if he planned to buy up all the farms around there, he replied, "No, I just want the ones that join me." He was not a contained man.

It is also evident that our frugal shepherd was discontent in the horizontal dimension. The same Paul who was contained in a Roman prison had, in the same letter to his friends in Philippi and only a few sentences prior, said:

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus -- (Philippians 3:12-14).

Though always readily content with his material circumstances, Paul was never restrained in grasping for more of Christ. And Christ, it seems, had all of Paul.

Probably the best way to be content these days is not to watch television or listen to that old-fashioned thing out of which advertisements constantly pour. Nor should we read magazines, especially the paper copies – if they still exist. I remember when Outdoor Life and Sports Afield were thick with stories and tales of adventure in the woods and plains and upon the waters. The last I saw of them they held no more virtue than Bass Pro flyers. Not that it matters, for Jack O’Connor and Robert Ruark have gone on that last longhunt, and barbarians hold the presses.

I suspect those who have learned to contain their desires must wonder at the accumulation and consumption that grips the rest of us. We compete with one another to have the latest or the most expensive or the most unique. We want things because of surface qualities – colors or shapes or styles. We buy things because they are “on sale”. There is nothing evil or sinful about having things. There is nothing sinful in enjoying shopping or buying gear or tools. God knows I have a shelf full of knives that alone would damn me to hell if that were the case. God asks only that we not invest love in the material. Have things; use things; do not grasp for the material or strive for it.

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:5-6)