“If only….”

“If I bought this…..”

“If we made this much, we would….”

Sound familiar?

It’s tempting to think that we can serve our Heavenly Father and on the other hand, feed our wants and desires, that if we have it all, made it all, we would just be SO COMPLETE.

I have an awful confession to make.

I didn’t join in with the “Black Friday craze”.One of the reason’s was due to we pretty much wrapped up our Christmas shopping and the other reason was we couldn’t really find a justifiable reason to go out and “catch the sales”.

Everything we needed, we pretty much had and we both are really working on the fact that do we really need “Product Y” when we have a “Product X’.

It’s not that we were trying to think we were better than anyone else, but this year, with how things are economically, it really has had us slow down and go,”Are we buying things because this is something they would really want?”, or are we just buying them “because of what we think” and in the process, hurting our pocketbooks more than really needed.

 I know people close to me and see people and live around people who think if they made enough money (when is enough every enough) and look like everyone else and had the same things, man oh man, they would be so happy, but then next month, this comes out or that comes out, and they’ve gotta have it and if they don’t have it, “Yeah sure God understands…but He doesn’t understand that I have to wear this and wear that and….”

Wait!

Who are we really serving in the entire picture?

And what happen to being so happy and complete.

There are people who live in the, if they live here and wore that and their kids did this and their spouse did that and the house looks like this, and they drove that and they had this “x amount” in their bank account, then that is the ONLY time they will ever be happy and who cares about what is going on right now because it doesn’t fit into their image of what perfect is so what does it really matter and oh yeah God, but that’s then, what about…..Now??

Consider this story,”A spouse who is unhappy and it doesn’t matter that the kids are healthy or that they are growing in Christ or that their family is striving to find a strong foundation in Christ, they are still unhappy because the house isn’t big enough, they aren’t making enough money or maybe they are caught up in the lie of the “Perfect Life” that consists of a perfection that doesn’t exist anywhere and yet, they look at other people, and think, I want that, without stopping to think of the costs it took” or maybe “We find ourselves overextending ourselves for the holidays because we feel what we are doing isn’t enough and won’t make people happy that we don’t stop and ask ourselves, “Am I trying to fit my own image  of what I think will be enough or will this really make someone happy?”

They want their cake and eat it too.

    ²⁴ “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. (Matthew 6:24, New King James Version)

This holiday season, we have a lot to be thankful for.

 I think it’s ironic that we have in our homes a representation of a simple manger, of a little babe that is the King of Kings, and determine to share Him on the same level with a display of opulant wealth.

And it’s not to go and say that we should take a vow of poverty, but when we find ourselves feeling….”We aren’t buying enough gifts or spending enough money or have enough money,” we have to stop and remember, when our Heavenly Father’s Son was born, He was not born among wealth.

He was born in a manger.

He wasn’t born in a sterile, hospital room.

There was no room for Him in the Inn and even then, it wasn’t the Ritz.

It was a stable and have you been in a stable before?

We wish for a better home or bigger home, meanwhile there are families out there who are losing their homes or may not have a home.

We wish for the perfect spouse, but there are spouses who have left their families in pursuit of personal wants or maybe, think they can find something better there rather than take the time to build on what they do have, or, they just don’t want to do the work themselves and find it easier to be disillusion.

We really want those pair of shoes we know we can’t afford or that coat or those clothes or maybe the kids want the latest brands and meanwhile there are families who are homeless and all they have is what they can fit in a suitcase.

We want a better job with more money and somewhere out there, as the holidays get closer, someone has just lost their job and maybe they are the sole income for that family.

The grass isn’t always greener on the other side and reading this verse is a reminder, that sometimes, the very thing that can make us actually happy are the very things that are exactly right in front of us, not in the form of silver and gold that may end up not being the real thing.

This year, is a reminder that if we are to truly count what we are really blessed with, our Heavenly Father, rises above all that.

Yes, it hurts to pay the bill and having nothing left after that.

Yes, it hurts to want to buy those pair of shoes but realistically, does that warrant putting Him really in the backseat of priorities?

When we do things, In Service to Him, we find, that in that, our blessings really count more. The key is do we choose to cherish what our Heavenly Father has already blessed us with and with what we have or do we forget what He has given us in pursuit of unreliable emotions and dreams that are often no other basis than our own satisfaction.

John Wesley (1703-1791) leaves us a valuable reminder from his sermon,”The Danger of Riches”,

O ye lovers of money, hear the word of the Lord! Suppose ye that money, though multiplied as the sand of the sea, can give happiness? Then you are “given up to a strong delusion, to believe a lie;” — a palpable lie, confuted daily by a thousand experiments. Open your eyes! Look all around you! Are the richest men the happiest? Have those the largest share of content who have the largest possessions? Is not the very reverse true? Is it not a common observation, that the richest of men are, in general, the most discontented, the most miserable?

Had not the far greater part of them more content when they had less money? Look into your breasts. If you are increased in goods, are you proportionably increased in happiness? You have more substance; but have you more content? You know that in seeking happiness from riches, you are only striving to drink out of empty cups. And let them be painted and gilded ever so finely, they are empty still.

It’s the holiday season and a reminder that, our Heavenly Father’s Son, the King of Kings, was not born in a mansion or castle, but in a manger, surrounded not by a grand court, but by farm animals and people who, by society standards, were the lowest class of society, but in His eyes, were the most worthiest to be at His birth.

Having more isn’t the key to happiness….Having faith and hope in our Heavenly Father is and part of that is not telling Him, wait while I get more, but instead, we wait while He does more for us.

When I saw the image it was just a humble reminder sometimes that “more” isn’t enough….just having what we have through Jesus Christ is more than enough and after that ….everything really does start to fall into place.

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