If I consider my life thus far, it has been full of short term addictions. The earliest one I can recall was an unhealthy love for Donny Osmond, and I still have the purple socks to prove it. Over the years I have worked the steps and recovered through obsessions with Toni Tennille haircuts, Simon & Garfunkel music, William Shakespeare, church growth strategies, and Birkenstocks. My latest challenge is an over-zealous attachment to NPR radio.
On Monday, I listened to a fascinating discussion about the state of the American economy. If you have never tuned in to “Talk of the Nation” it is worth a minute. People call in and ask questions or make comments on the subject of the hour. I was intrigued as I listened to both the fear and the concern that Americans are experiencing as Wall Street struggles. One woman was so put out that she admitted that it would be good to see the CEOs of some of these companies jump out of windows as many had done during the Great Depression. That would somehow be satisfying for her.
I want to believe that God has something to say about everything we experience. I was reading in Psalm 16 yesterday and was reminded that, “I will praise the LORD, who counsels me, even at night my heart instructs me.” I’m not God, but here is what I sense in my heart:
I am troubled by the consumerism that prods our economy and system along. When I consider the Gospels, I struggle to locate the part that encourages consumerism. Even our need for energy. Why is it that some see the answer as finding more fuel to feed our needs, instead of helping us learn to curb our desires?
Denying self is such an essential part of what it means to be like Jesus. He, who made Himself nothing (Phil. 2), continues to counsel us in His ways – the way to be healed – even our Wall Street.
I would love for a leader to declare the unpopular. “We need to eat, drive, buy and use less! We need to face our addictions!” Excess is not an unalienable right, and what Christians are claiming their rights, anyway?
2 comments:
Bravo!
so well said Wendy.
this really resonates with my thoughts lately as well.
though I too fall into the consumerism trap more often than I'd like, I struggle to reconcile our demands for MORE with what Christ came and showed us about how to Live.
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