It's So Easy...

I've been giving a lot of thought to my word for the year: RUN.  I have so many thoughts and prayers going through my head...seeing how much this word is going to impact me.  I want to RUN...I don't want stroll through life living on cable TV and lattes. I want to treat my life like it means something...like I was created for a purpose.  I do NOT want to be content doing what everyone else is doing "because everyone else is doing it." I want to understand daily that my life is not my own -- I was bought at a price.  I do not get to decide to sit around and do nothing.  To sit around and feel sorry for myself.  To sit around and blame other people or circumstances for why I just sit around.  I cannot and will not live that way.  I want to run.  I'm on a slow jog right now...but it's progress.  And I won't quit until I am running full speed.

But...

It is so easy.  It is so easy to get sucked into a Sunday Stroll type of existence.  I have been thinking a lot lately on what it means to live sacrificially. To give until it hurts.  To live in a way that it could be said of us, "that in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality." (2 Corinthians 8:2).  I want to learn how to live on less so that I can give more.  I want to live on less so that I can teach myself and my children that  happiness is not found in the abundance of things.  And yet, as convinced and convicted I am, it is so easy to get sucked back into it.

Just this week I have had a number of experiences when I went from wanting to live with less to desiring MORE in a matter of moments. From remembering that millions are starving to thinking $200 a night for a hotel isn't that bad.  From reading about the ONE MILLION people that live in a slum that is ONE SQUARE MILE to thinking that having a bigger kitchen sure would be nice. From wanting to live more simply and more focused to thinking how fun it would be to go house hunting "for something nicer" (and doesn't leak).

It's just so easy.  It's so easy to see what others have.  To see things that I want.  To crave material things to fill a longing in my heart. To justify my actions because I am "better than so and so."  To rationalize my actions and decisions because "it is for the kids."

Oh Lord.  Don't let it be so easy.  Don't let me get fooled by the lies of this world that say MORE is better. That BIGGER is better.  That I DESERVE it.  That the problems of the world are too BIG for me to do anything about.  That $5 here and $5 there doesn't make a difference (when there are people in the world who can't come up with 21 cents a month.) Help me to grasp every day that the only MORE I need is MORE of You.

And just so I don't leave this post pictureless...here is my desktop background that I have had for the last year or so...just to remind me. (The photo was taken from kenyakidscan.org) These are kids in Kenya who are lined up for lunch at school...the ONE meal a day they get.

Comments

[Christin P]

Oh...thank you so much for this. I've been struggling with getting myself to RUN as you described. I need that encouragement and reminder today.

Christin

[jennyg]

a homeless man froze to death the other night in nashville..and i am wanting a bigger house. one of my struggles as well.