[Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Friday, March 14, 2014

[Paul]

Well folks, in case you haven't figured it out already, today is Pi day, pi in algebra being 3.14 for those who remember taking that course in high school or college.  Just couldn't help bringing that out, especially when a talk show host did so locally.  Anyway I hope that you're planning your weekend activities, whatever they might be.

Sometimes in life, and perhaps maybe even now, there come times when we are discontented or dissatisfied with life's circumstances.  Well, this somewhat long article deals with that subject.  It was originally written in 2009 by Dr. William Utech, associate professor of practical theology at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO, and his article is entitled "On Contentment," rendered as follows:

I have a beautiful and talented six-year-old hunting dog named Lucky.  Lucky is an English setter and, much to my joy and satisfaction, she is extremely proficient at being and doing what our God created her to do and be.  She is a bird-hunting machine, and every fall she and I and usually one of my seminary colleagues enjoy each other's company, companionship and cooperation as we successfully hunt the wily ring-necked pheasant, the explosive bob white quail, and the illusive northern ruffed grouse.  Lucky was made for bird hunting.  That's her God-given vocation.  So it should come as no surprise that she is most happy and most content when she is doing what she was made to do.

And then a beaver moved into the manhole of the storm sewer in my backyard, and it would appear that for a hunting dog, at least, the aroma of a nearby beaver is both enticing and addictive--enough that the animal is on Lucky's mind all the time! She doesn't want to eat.  She doesn't want to sleep.  She doesn't even want to come inside where she can hang out with her family.  Never mind that that beaver is living in an impregnable concrete pillbox.  Never mind that it is always just out of her reach.  She is focused on it.  She is obsessed with it.  She is target-locked on it, and life is passing her by.

Sound familiar?

"But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains" (1 Tim. 6:9-10).

It could happen to you.  It could happen to me.  In this country and in this culture we are _all at risk.  Oh, sure, during times of economic downturn when historically rock-solid businesses are filing for bankruptcy and people are losing their homes and their jobs and money is hard to come by, it's tempting to think that we're above temptation.  But it is precisely at times like these that a sinful love of money can lay hold of us.

We look at our 401(ks) and our 403(bs) and we see how much we've lost, and we're sick about it.  There's red ink everywhere, and it doesn't seem possible that a whole decade of hard work and disciplined planning for the future could disappear just like that! "It's not right, and it's not fair," we say to ourselves.  And we feel cheated and put upon.

But are we? Really? In "Jesus Wants To Save Christians," Rob Bell offers some startling statistics about America's affluence:

America controls nearly 20 percent of the world's wealth.  There are around 6 billion people in the world, and there are roughly 300 million people in the U.S.  That makes America less than 5 percent of the world's population.  And this 5 percent owns a fifth of the world's wealth.  Every seven seconds, somewhere in the world a child under age five dies of hunger, while Americans throw away 14 percent of the food we purchase.  Nearly a billion people in the world live on less than an American dollar a day.  Another 2.5 billion people in the world live on less than two American dollars a day.

More than half of the world lives on less than two dollars a day, while the average American teenager spends nearly 150 dollars a week.  Americans spend more annually on trash bags than nearly half of the world does on all goods.



We've been cheated? I don't think so.  We're disadvantaged? Not likely.  We're put upon? Not hardly.  On the contrary, in this country and in this culture we have more than most, and the problem with that is that when fallen, sinful people _have _more, they also tend to _want _more.



Wanting More

It happens every spring.  I go to the St. Louis Auto Show.  I see the shiny new cars.  I run my hands across their curvaceous and beautifully sculpted flanks.  I plop my backside down on firmly bolstered seats.  I carefully caress the steering wheel and close my eyes.  The heady aroma of leather and wood fills my nostrils.  My heart palpitates.  And it's not long before I'm thinking--no, I'm planning--no, I'm plotting--no, I'm scheming, "How can I get me one of these for myself?"

And you are just like me.  It may not be cars, but it _is something.  You, me, all of us have this innate ability to be dissatisfied with what we have and to always want more.  In a recent Christmas movie based on Dr. Seuss's book, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," there's a scene where the Grinch, who lives up on the same mountain that also serves as Whoville's landfill, confronts all the Whovillians with their sinful need for more.

"Gifts!" the Grinch shouts.  "Gifts! Gifts! Gifts! Gifts! Gifts! Do you want to know what happens to your gifts? They all come to me in your garbage.  You see what I'm saying? In your garbage! I could hang myself with all the bad Christmas neckties I found at the dump! The avarice! The avarice never ends! I want golf clubs.  I want diamonds.  I want a pony so I can ride it twice, get bored, and sell it to make glue!"

The avarice never ends.  And if that wasn't true about you and about me and about all of us, then it wouldn't get so deathly quiet in our worship services whenever our pastors talk about tithing.  Just like my dog Lucky, we get so focused, so obsessed, so target-locked on stuff, that it hardly occurs to us that the good life God wants for us may be passing us by.  For example, the joy of being a son or a daughter, the joy of being a friend and colleague, the joy of being part of a Christian church that changes hearts and changes lives for eternity, the joy of being a child of God.  Are you missing out on the joy of life--on the joy of all your God-given vocations--because you want more stuff?

C.S. Lewis observes that "prosperity knits a man to the world." St. Paul, as we've noted, said it like this:  "People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.  Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." And the answer, the antidote, for all of this? It is, as St. Paul says in 1 Timothy, the great gain of godliness with contentment.



Everything We Need

Now the godliness part, as you well know, comes from the person and work of Jesus, who, as St. Paul sings, "He was revealed in flesh, vindicated in spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among Gentiles, believed in throughout the world, taken up in glory" (1 Tim. 3:16).  This Jesus did all of this for you so that you may have life, and have it to the full.

So I have a question for you:  "He who did not withhold His own Son, but gave Him up for all of us, will He not with Him also give us everything else?" (Rom 8:32).

The dictionary defines the old English word concupiscence as "powerful feelings of physical desire." Following St. Paul's lead, St. Augustine goes further and defines concupiscence as "a misplaced love of God, a disordered desire for earthly things, which, though good, become evil when they are wrongly loved."

God gives us our deepest desires, but does so in a way that resources our faith, our relationships, and our vocations in just the right way and at just the right time.  No, we won't get everything we want, but we will get everything we need.

And that is all we really need to be content, all the days appointed for our earthly life.

And there you have Dr. Utech's article.  For those of you who are still around, let me add one final comment, if I may.

We hear of miracles, signs and wonders in so-called third world countries by missionaries back on furlough to our respective churches.  It is my belief, not supported by logic or anything else, that these occur simply because the people in those countries have a firmer reliance on God rather than on material things, and God sees and recognizes this.  Because of that, He can do things there that He can't here.  May we, even in very small ways, cut back on this and/or that.  I'm not saying what you should do; that's between you and God.

And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, in these last days in which we live.  Lord willing, tomorrow there will be another Daily Thought message, hopefully not as long as today's.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul