Evil devil woman - be gone!
As the tundra begins to thaw in my home state and all other parts of the country are enjoying Spring, I am beginning to look forward to the days when I can go hiking, backpacking and camping. When weather permits the great outdoors calls my name. My hope is that my sons will also enjoy hiking and camping (translation: my duty as a father is to force them to enjoy those things I enjoy so that I will have an excuse to go on great trips with them - that is true parenting). As I think about the upcoming hiking season I cannot help but think about all of the things I "need" to make my hiking more enjoyable. My thoughts are constantly bombarded with the tension of need and want. Do I need top of the line boots to hike in the prairies of North Dakota? The answer to that question is the same answer to Paul's question in Romans about continuing in sin so that grace may increase. Do I want new boots? Well, sure!
Saturday evening Kirsten and I watched a documentary called Invisible Children which is about the children of Uganda who are forced to hide from the rebels to escape being enslaved to corrupt armies. Sunday morning the sermon was from Luke 10:25-37 on having A Passion for Compassion (the parable of the "good" Samaritan). Monday Kirsten and I read Luke 12. Jesus tells the parable of the man who runs out of room to store his crop. The rich man decides to build more store houses for his crop. God calls the rich man a fool and says "this very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself" (vv. 16-21). The point is - where are your treasures? Are they stored up here or are they stored in heaven?
I have been thinking quite a bit about this and had a conversation with a buddy of mine this morning about the topic. We were talking about the things in life that tempt us to want what we may not need. The REI catalogue was one of those things that we both decided could be, at times, a temptation to our wants (not needs). He said, "the REI catalogue is an evil devil woman." What more should be said?
I have been thinking - where are my treasures stored? How about you?
7 comments:
Well, after visiting REI.com, I understand why it would be a temptation to you. For me it would be the Best Buy, the Circuit City, the Staples, and other tv, home theater and computer catalogs. They are *evil-devil-woman*.
Shhh.. don't tell anyone, but I subscribed to satelite radio in my truck for three years. It's great!
They say you can tell where a man's heart is by looking at his checkbook. It's hard to hold back, but I don't have very many checks written for the toys for big boys at the electronics stores. And there are so many things I would like to bring home with me!
By the way, I think I may have my wife convinced that we should have an LCD hdtv in the bedroom. Oops, I mean convinced that we "need" one. I am really close, really! :-)
Wince:
1) right now my treasure is in PNC bank.
2) you are right about consumerism. Someone said that perhaps it is even sin when we "browse". We open ourselves for temptation. We invite the lure of lust.
When we first moved here to Germany I felt I was on a "spiritual high" because of our inability to understand anything. We simply weren't tempted by advertisements and life's many distractions.
We don't have malls to stroll through and be tempted. Etc...it was great. Life was reduced to simpler elements.
Unfortunately we soon learned the "beauty" of the internet. And now we are moving back to the US. I would really like to rid reduce our lives to simpler things.
My goal when we move back is to "streamline". That is, I do not want to eliminate everything or to go "cheap" but I'd like to determine what areas of our lives are unnecessary and eliminate those. Then for what remains, determine how to do that with excellence, e.g., Mac with Intel chips, and really go for that.
That sounds wrong but I'm saying high quality reductionism.
This world has nothing for me and this world has everything
All that I could want and nothing that I need
honorbound men - we all have our "evil devil women."
matthew - good words from a once good band.
rick - in the sermon on sunday an illustration was given of john newton. he sat down with his family to figure out exactly what they needed to live. after the family came up with the figure they set their budget firm. for every penny over the budget that they spent on themselves they also gave a penny to those in need. that is just one example of a family who had this in perspective. must we all live like this? no. but we should be asking questions about where we can 'streamline' and show mercy to those in need.
Wow...I cant believe you guys are still struggling with such a Jr. High topic. You are grown men who should be feasting on the meat of the word and living it out. I know we are not all on the same spiritual level but for pete's sake this is like the topic of "Peer Pressure." Anywhoo, I digress. I need to get back to down loading some new music on my 15 inch G4 Mac so I can upload it to my i-Pod for when I go work out tomorrow...I just bought some new gym shorts. I love to sweat to the oldies while I am reading the latest REI catalogue. ; )
CreativeLiberty: You're funny! But right.
We "should be feasting on the meat of the word and living it out".
It is far to easy to sit in church thinking about that new LCD tv at Best Buy or that other *evil-devil-woman* (you fill in the blank) while completely ignoring the person in the pew in front of us that has a desperate need for food, maybe clothes, maybe even a place to sleep, or maybe just needs a friend to put an arm around them for a few minutes and encourage them.
Hey guess what???
On TV, Circuit City is advertising 36 months no interest on all TV's $999 and up. Could this be the time to buy?
:-)
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