Is who you are more important than what you can buy?
Read that question again, but this time personalize it. Ask yourself out loud, "Is who I am more important that what I can buy?" You and I know the correct answer to that question, but that doesn't make its truth easy to swallow. Most of us couldn't buy as much today as we could six months ago.
I visited with our financial planner this week, and it wasn't pretty. We don't even have much to lose, but we're still losing it. This current economic downturn has probably sucker punched your savings accounts too.
I also spoke to a friend today who just lost his job. No two week notice--just a “hey-thanks-for-playing-but-clean-out-your-desk” conversation. Perhaps you're all too familiar with this scene, which is repeating itself all over the country. This kind of news is an even harder pill to swallow, especially when you're supporting a family.
How does it feel to have to spend less? Or to go without? What does it say about you if you can't afford a nice gift for someone you love? What will others think if you have to downsize to a less-expensive home? Or, how does it feel when you no longer have the funds to support the efforts of ministries you know and missionaries you love like you once were able to? Is it a struggle to be content?
What if you can't adequately support your family? Isn't there a verse in the Bible about being worse than an unbeliever if you don't provide for your family? Yep, 1 Timothy 5:8 says this, but there's a big difference between not being able to provide for their needs and not being able to provide for their wants.
In an affluent society like ours, the dividing line between our needs and our wants has blurred. We think we need a cell phone plan with unlimited minutes in case of emergencies. We think we need a gym membership--accompanied by an iPod--to be healthy. We think we need cable television and a DVR. When we can't afford these, our contentment is threatened. In Philippians 4:19 Paul wrote, "My God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus." He said God would supply all we needed, not all we wanted.
Are you reminding yourself that your identity is not determined by where you are, or what you do, or what you can buy? I also like what Paul wrote about contentment:
"I've learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I'm just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I've found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. " - Philippians 4:11-13 (The Message)
Paul was no stranger to hardship, yet he had learned the secret to being content. He didn't find it in his elite education. Not in his wealth or his poverty. Not in his freedom or his imprisonment. None of that mattered because Paul discovered that contentment is a matter of the heart. Haven't we learned that we can rarely control what's going on around us, but we can choose to be content, regardless of our circumstances? Contentment has nothing to do with what's happening around us, only what's happening inside us.
Notice that peace and joy are fruits of the Spirit, not fruits of our circumstances. If we're relying on our circumstances or environment to subsidize our peace and joy, then what we're experiencing is not true peace and joy. Perhaps it's nothing more than a "peaceful, easy feeling"'present when times are good, but absent when times are bad. However, when our peace and joy come from the Spirit, we can be content whether "hands full or hands empty" (v.12).
Let's face it. We all need money. You need it. I need it. Lifetime Guarantee Ministries needs it. Money is not the root of all evil. It's the love of money that's the root of all sorts of evil (1 Timothy 6:10). Money is nothing more than a tool, and having more of it will never affect our contentment. Benjamin Franklin once said, "Contentment makes poor men rich; discontentment makes rich men poor." He's right. You can be wealthy and miserable, or you can be barely scraping by and at peace.
Paul's contentment came from Christ. He said "I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am" (v.13). You're not a self-made man or woman. No, Christ's death and resurrection makes you who you are. The Spirit of Christ in you gives you the ability to "make it through anything."
So, as you face a shrinking budget or a job loss, constantly remindyourself of who you are and who made you that way.
Your brother in Christ,
P.S. Are your circumstances the last straw that breaks your back? Or, are you allowing God to use your circumstances as His finishing touch in your life? For more on this, you might want to purchase our audio series entitled Rising Above Your Circumstances from our online store at Lifetime.org. It's available on CD or as an MP3 download.
