It’s been a burden lately how little I have to pay for what I need.  Through it I’ve been on my knees trying to not complain as the Israelites did but rather to lean into the Lord.  And then there’s today.  Today I thanked God for my lack.  Genuinely.

Now I know some people are going to have theological problems with that action.  But you have to understand what was behind it.

Yesterday felt like a day that hell was unleashed.  Just sayin…  I can’t go into details but at the core is someone who has no need for anyone else.  They have their money, their gods, their secure life, and because of it they feel free to treat people disdainfully.    Because they have everything they need, they don’t need anyone or anything else.  I’m trying to put things pleasantly.  The selfishness is astounding.

But this morning when I woke up I realized that this is so easy for the Christian.  We want to be comfortable–have enough money to pay our bills, food on the table, good working relationships, good family relationships, etc…  We want everything to be in a nice place and sometimes that happens.

Yet there’s a danger there.  A very real, tangible danger.  When we have it all, we tend not to reach out to God to depend on Him, but rather become arrogant, independent and selfish.  Nor do we seek help from each other which is good because we need one another in the seasons of life.

¹¹ “Be careful that you don’t forget the Lord your God by failing to keep His command—the ordinances and statutes—I am giving you today. ¹² When you eat and are full, and build beautiful houses to live in, ¹³ and your herds and flocks grow large, and your silver and gold multiply, and everything else you have increases, ¹⁴ be careful that your heart doesn’t become proud and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery. 

The church has prospered in every environment except prosperity.   We long for prosperity not in the sense of being rich, but to be comfortable and have enough.  And this isn’t bad.  What’s bad is that when we get comfortable, it’s so very easy to rest in what we have and not continue to rely on God.

So when we have what we need in life we are blessed.  And when we don’t have “enough” we are actually even more blessed because we are more positioned to lean into the Lord.

I’ve traveled all over the world and engaged with some of the wealthiest people on this earth and some of the most poor.  And honestly I can say the poor have a wealth we can only begin to dream about.

We don’t seek poverty.  Instead, we try to alleviate it as God sought to make a system for the Israelites where there was no poverty (Deut 15:4).  Poverty is terrible.

But we also must be careful of the deceitfulness of wealth and having our lives comfortable.  It might just leave our souls bankrupt.