Possession Obsession

I was sitting quietly in my seat waiting for the service to begin when three year old David came to sit next to me. He hadn’t done so in the longest time, so it was a sweet surprise. I say hello and he says he’s fine. Then he starts flooding me with all these questions. Where’s your house? Where’s your car? What colour is it? Where’s the other pastor? Where’s his car? (he has an obsession with cars). I felt so caught with that first question? Why would he ask me that? Is it so obvious that I shouldn’t be living at home that a three year old could see it? I finally sheepishly replied that I don’t have my own house, I stay at home with my parents at such and such a place. He moved on to the next question. Before I knew it, the conversation was over, and off he went to ask for sweets from another lady.

It is only when I had a conversation with his mother that I realised how I’d misunderstood him. She told me how he refers to his home as his house, she’d tried explaining the difference, but it’s just how it worked in his head. I felt stupid, but in it, I realised a fault in my way of thinking. I was obsessing over what I had and didn’t have and I was letting it somewhat influence the way I saw myself.

We live in a time where we live our lives out in the open. What we own, eat and where we go is shared with others at the click of a button. We are the peacock generation, we have it, we flaunt it. I’m not going to go into the science of why it is so and what it means on a deeper level…but I will say that it has redefined things. I wrote extensively in my previous post about how our society has defined success by possession. This emphasis leads to living unfulfilling lives since fulfilment is strictly linked to purpose and not possession.

So God got to me good with this one verse.

“Then he said to them, ‘Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” Luke 12:15

Jesus says this while responding to a question asked by a man in a crowd. The man wanted Jesus to intervene by asking his brother to share the inheritance with him.

What exactly is greed? My bible dictionary defines it as an excessive desire to acquire more than one has, usually leading to inappropriate behaviour. The key word is ‘excessive’. It is when ‘getting and gaining’ it is all I think about, all the time. When such a desire is excessive, it’s impossible to acknowledge, appreciate and be content with what I already have. I’m so taken by that last part of the verse where Jesus corrects my thinking so it will inform my desires. The New Living Translation has it as “Life is not measured by how much you own” while The Message version puts it as “Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot.”

This is not to say having things is a sin (I’ve heard that gospel) but it does mean life shouldn’t revolve around what you have. Defining life by stuff is not only damaging to your perspective, but it is also detrimental to your relationships because when things are first, people become second.

So remember today, your life is more than where you stay and what you drive, it’s more than the job you have and money you earn. There’s so much more to life that our society is cheating us from by pushing us towards an obsession with things. It is robbing us from a fulfilling relationship with God and loving relationships with others. It is moving us away from realizing the gifts we are able to give by making us focus only on what we can get. Sure we will continue to aspire to have things, but in the right heart and state of mind. We will be content and grateful for what we have because our hearts will always be full from who we have, who is far better and longer lasting than riches.

“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5