Putting the World To Rights part II

Materialism is a beast that I believe we all battle at some point in our lives. I know for me it is a daily struggle. Again, I think it is the principle with coming to God with open hands and allowing Him to put whatever in my life and taking whatever crap out of it. What I have noticed with my relationship with God is that He doesn’t want me to rest my security on anything but Him; rather it is money or a guitar.

That last part strikes a chord (No pun intended) with me. This last year I sold my electric guitar, amplifier, and foot petals for an emergency. It was painful to say the least. After I did this, I became aware of how little I played my electric guitar and how I just wanted more. The reality is that I wasn’t playing my electric guitar very much at all, but I still wanted an expensive guitar because it was one more possession that I could get that would make me feel better. Crazy huh? I have seen this in my life time and time again where it isn’t about the item…it is something going on much deeper…it is about the achievement of possession. Music is another huge example (Especially for me). It isn’t about having an MP3 player full of my favorite music; it is about achieving the status of possessing a huge amount of music. Do you really think that a person with an ipod that is full of over 160 gigs enjoys all of that music, or do you think it is about a status?

I don’t believe that ownership is wrong, but it comes back to a principle of checking your self to see if it is about the item or about a deeper issue. I am not sure if any of this makes sense or I am just getting on my soap box.

For me, I know it comes back to this materialist principle. Somehow someway, we are broken and we feel like if we can tangibly latch on to some part of creation and own it, that it will bring satisfaction. Perhaps it is because we can never “Own” anything. I don’t know if it is a Western thought pattern, but I experience this mindset the most when I look at our culture. I think this whole, “War on Terror” is a big part of what America has become. We feel like it is our job to be the bully in the school yard and tell how people should think and act. This is not new though. We have done this type of thing time and time again. Why is it that we are ok with free trade amongst other nations? It is fully expected when our culture thrives in injustice, but when Christians who are called out of this mindset still follow it, well then we have a problem. Christ says that His kingdom is not of or out of this world rather it is politics or Empire. If we don’t show people how we care about the sick, the poor, ecology, materialism, free trade, etc then how will they see Jesus? I think that they will see a very distorted view of Him as the right wing republican conservative American who wears a red tie and drinks his Starbucks. I am not sure if Christ was here in person today if he would even be in America. We are suppose to embody the kingdom of God and yet we fall right in line with the culture. I struggle with this and wonder how I am to play my part or how I am enabling it to continue.

It is way easier to escape than to stick with something and enact change. It is amazing how so many Christians will say, “Well God is going to destroy this world and I am going to go to heaven any way so it really doesn’t matter.” As if this argument is satisfactory with God or lets us off the hook. It isn’t an argument for or against any type of escotology but a statement that bares examination. It is as if a person was to go to a pastor and say, “I really struggle with lust but I am going to go to heaven anyway so it really doesn’t matter.” Hopefully that pastor wouldn’t sit back and say, “Good for you! I am glad you are going to heaven.” I should hope the pastor would say, “Precisely because you are going to heaven you should rectify your problem.” This may seem disconnected from the rest of what I was saying, but it is symbiotic in the way that we just give up before we start to reach solutions.