Contentment

A faithful person will be richly blessed,
but one eager to get rich will not go unpunished.
Proverbs 28:20

A characteristic of human nature is the uncontrollable desire to accumulate property and wealth. What seems to have begun as a simple but necessary self-preservation instinct, storing supplies for the days of scarcity, is uncontrollably unleashed in a compulsion for the accumulation of wealth, which goes beyond what we really need to live a comfortable and secure life. The prevailing economic style of our consumer society takes full advantage of this weakness of character and we get bombarded with advertising and promotion of lifestyles that only a few can achieve and maintain. Competitiveness, which has also been instilled from our earliest infancy is combined with this merciless advertisement attack to make us bend our knees before the despicable idol of money . Every way we look at it we lose because our own forces are nothing compared with the strength of the message that the world uses to control our lives.

The Lord Jesus warned us: “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” The apostle Paul complemented: “Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” The times of shortage we have been given are not for us to endeavor to leave them but to learn “what it is to be in need, and to know what it is to have plenty. To learn the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” These things also happen to us so that Christ’s power is perfected in our weakness. Let us, then, be forever grateful for the circumstances we have to live, for God has everything under his perfect control and everything that happens to us is for our own good. Only to God be the glory!