Materialism - Dene's Blog

Mission Accomplished

2/4/2016 0 Comments

And He said to them, let us go elsewhere into the next towns, that I may preach there also, for to this end came I forth, Mark 1:38.

            Jesus was a worker. He got up early (Mark 1:35), and sometimes even missed a meal because He was so busy working, (John 4:31-34.) He was always ready to move on to the next place, the next group of people. His philosophy seemed to be, “There’s not much time so let’s keep working.” Why? Because He understood His mission: this is why I came.

           That is not today’s philosophy. Instead I hear, “There’s plenty of time to work, so let’s go play,” or “Life is short, so have fun.” Maybe we don’t work like we ought to because we don’t know our mission like He did.

            In our culture everything is about me--whether I am happy, whether I get to do the things I want to do, whether I feel fulfilled--and the things that we find fulfilling are usually money, fame, and pleasure.

            We are simply too rich. Ask a Christian in a third world country what his mission in life is and you are far more likely to get the right answer. He scarcely has a roof over his head, much less one over a couple of thousand square feet of luxury home, and his leaks! His existence is day to day, hand to mouth, and he works longer hours for a miniscule fraction of your pay—if indeed he has a job—than you think is humane. Yet all his spare time is used studying his Bible, attending Bible classes, and speaking to his neighbors. We can hardly find the time to simply sit in the pews, even though we probably work more than a dozen hours less a week than that man.

            We seem to be teaching our children the same mindless egocentrism. They “deserve” to have fun. They are so busy with earthly pursuits every minute of the day that they don’t even spend thirty minutes a week filling out a Bible lesson—and their parents are too busy to check to see if they did, or sigh with regret and say, “But they needed a little down time.” Can’t their down time involve something spiritual? Can’t we teach them how satisfying it is to take meals to the poor, to visit the elderly and the sick, to do their yard work and run errands for them? If they are not learning it now, when will they? If they are not learning it from you, then who will teach them?

            Four times the Hebrew writer says Jesus “sat down,” 1:3; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2. Jesus did not sit down because He was tired and needed to rest, or because he needed some time to Himself. He sat down because He had accomplished His task. He told His disciples, We must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day; the night comes when no man can work, John 9:4.

            My mission is not about me. My mission is about Jesus and His family—serving Him by serving them; serving Him by serving my friends and neighbors. When you know what your mission is, you are more likely to keep working at it, and less likely to worry about whether you are having enough fun. Those things become your “fun;” they become your fulfilling moments; they become your treasure stored in Heaven.

            Accomplishing those things will finally give you the opportunity to sit down and rest.

He who overcomes, I will give to Him to sit down with me in my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my Father in His throne, Rev 3:21.

Dene Ward

Homesick

1/19/2016 0 Comments

In Thomas Wolfe's novel You Can't Go Home Again, George Webber concludes, "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time…"

           Whenever Keith talks about Arkansas, he says, “Back home.” It used to bother me a little. Home should be where I am, shouldn’t it? Then I realized that I could never have the feelings of a place that he did. I never lived in just one place as a child, and the place I lived longest is not the place I go to when I visit my parents. They left that place a year after I married and have lived in nearly half a dozen places since.

            It is ironic that one of my sons lives there now, the place I would have called home, but when I go visit him, it has been so long since it was home, and it has changed so much, that I never even think of it that way any more. The longest I have ever lived in any one place is the place I live now, and as Keith and I head into our senior years, I can foresee a time, though I hope not too soon, when we will have to leave it. Even as small a plot as five acres takes a lot of labor, and it is a long way from the folks we count on to care for us when we become too old and disabled to take care of it and ourselves.

            Christians should be careful about those feelings of “home.” Home should never be about a place, but about people, and about Truth. I have seen churches divide over doctrines, divisions that were necessary. Yet people who should have known better stayed—they were converted to a place, a building, not to the Lord.

            And Christians in our society have another problem—one that the poverty stricken brethren in places like Nicaragua and Zimbabwe never have to deal with—we have become entirely too comfortable. We are so “at home” in our rich lives that we don’t want to give them up. Persecution, even simply the ridicule and criticism of others, is too much to bear. There is always a good reason not to speak up when sin becomes accepted, and not to behave differently.   Even if there is no persecution, we have a problem singing, “This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through.” This is home and we want to stay as long as possible.

            We must make ourselves see beyond the here and now. We must force ourselves to realize that where and how we are living today is not our goal. Eternity is difficult enough to comprehend without focusing on what is right in front of us as if it were the only thing that counted. Here is the truth of the matter: compared to Eternity our lives are not even a drop of water in the entire ocean.

            Christians have the promise that one day we will never again be homesick. Heaven is the home we have all been looking for, the place we will live forever. We will never have to leave. We will never sit pining and wishing for the good old days. The “dreams of glory” Thomas Wolfe spoke of will be there and then. But perhaps in Eternity “then” will no longer have a meaning. It will be Now—a capital letter Now that never ends.

Being therefore always of good courage, and knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord, 2 Cor 5:6,8.

Dene Ward

September 11, 1928 A What in Your House?

9/11/2015 0 Comments

We are so far out in the country that we only receive two TV channels, and those are snowy on good days. Many years ago we all agreed that we would give up other gifts to have a 75 foot TV antenna with a booster erected outside the house as our family Christmas gift. The Gators were playing so in order to have it working as soon as it was up Keith did not wait to drill a hole through the floor and run the wire up that way. He simply pulled out a corner of the window screen closest to the television, and opened the window a crack. He would get to it later. As is the case with most of us, “later” was put off longer and longer.

            Then one morning the inevitable happened. I looked over and thought, “That wire certainly looks thicker than usual.” When I got closer I discovered the reason—a black racer had wound itself around it, and was already halfway through the window.

            I grabbed a broom and smacked at the window, hoping that would scare the snake back outside. It worked the opposite way. The snake’s slow slither through the opening turned into a swift swish all the way inside, dropping with a thud on the floor. Yikes! Now I had a snake in my house. I was not going to leave it. If I lost track of it, I knew I would never sleep again with a snake somewhere inside, especially one that had shown a proclivity for climbing. I could just imagine it wound around the posts at the head of my iron bed while I slept.

            Luckily the boys were home that day. They ran to get the things I called for while I kept an eye on the unwelcome visitor. Together we did our best to scare that snake out the door with brooms and mops and anything else we could find. It kept curling into a ball or hiding under a chair. At one point, the thought crossed my mind to try sucking it up in the vacuum—at least the hose would be a perfect fit!

            I came to my senses before that thought became a spoken idea, and told them to bring a box. Lucas found one and put the box on the floor, open side toward the snake, while I swept it with the broom. Every time it neared the box, it flattened itself and slid underneath it instead of going inside. We tried several times, but finally my nerves were shot. I was through trying to be nice to this one of God’s creatures.

            Once more I sent the boys on an errand. When they returned, I stood on a chair, loaded the proffered .22 pistol with rat shot so I wouldn’t blow a hole in either the floor or the wall (normally I use a shotgun with a much heavier load) and shot that snake where he lay. I gave him his chance and he blew it. He was not going to use my house as his own private playground.

            All that for a literal snake, while we had voluntarily let loose an electronic snake in our home. When we chose to go to the expense of installing that other kind of snake, it was with a purpose—we were seldom able to watch our teams play; this was the only way and the cheapest in the long run. But our boys knew that it was not there for indiscriminate watching. More than once we uttered that mean word, “No.” More than once we turned it off and said, “Never again,” for a particular show. We even limited their hours of “good” show time. We did not want to be responsible for creating illiterate, overweight, glassy-eyed couch potatoes.

            The first professional television drama began on September 11, 1928, “The Queen’s Messenger,” and broadcast television has come a long way from those innocent days. Calling it a snake is an apt metaphor, especially when you remember the first appearance of a snake in the Bible.

            Not everyone is careful with that snake in their homes. Not only do they let it sit in the corner unmonitored, but many even let it baby-sit their children. It feeds their minds and their hearts for hours every day. It teaches them that sin is acceptable, and that anyone who thinks otherwise is either hateful or crazy. It inures them to foul language and crude comments. It teaches children—and adults--to take pleasure watching the sins of others, to admire those sinners and want to emulate them, right down to the clothes they wear. It tells them that nothing is sacred, except the right to do anything they please without censure.

            Some people do keep snakes as pets, but they learn how to handle them, and know better than to let them loose unattended. If you are going to keep an electronic snake in your home, remember to keep a close eye on it, and never let it teach your children. Abdicating your responsibility as parents is aiding and abetting the enemy.

For I have told [Eli] that I will judge his house forever, for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons did bring a curse upon themselves, and he restrained them not, 1 Sam 3:13.

Dene Ward

The Moving Van

7/1/2015 0 Comments

We just finished helping my mother move up here near us, probably the last move she will ever make. She has accumulated a lot in 87 years. Even though she gave away at least half of her kitchen equipment and several pieces of furniture, as the movers traipsed in and out and the little house begin to fill, we no longer said, “In the living room,” or “In the back bedroom.” By the end we were telling them, “Just find an empty corner and put it there.” True, the house is 100 square feet less than the one she left, but that’s only a 10 x 10 room, perhaps one very small bedroom, and there seems to be many more times that much furniture we have yet to find a place for. It appears that she will need to give away even more.

   I found myself thinking what I might give up when we need to leave this place we have lived for 33 years now. Relatively small as family homes go, just 1350 square feet, we still managed to raise two boys to manhood and have accumulated far more than will fit in a house the size of my mother’s new one. So what can I do without?

   The answer is really simple. You can do without practically every possession you have. Just look at what we take camping. It’s a lot to take for a vacation, but for living, it’s practically nothing and we manage just fine for well over a week.

   But maybe the answer is even easier than that. What will you take in the moving van when you die? Absolutely nothing. It will be empty from front to rear, top to bottom. Absolute essentials for this physical life may be the smallest and plainest amounts of food, clothing, and shelter, but for your spiritual life, all those things that you spend so much time picking out, caring for, and working to pay for are completely nonessential

   So why do we spend so much time and energy on them? Why do we care so much where we live and how it is decorated, what we wear and who designed it, what we eat and how good it tastes? Could it be because we have forgotten this fundamental truth: things of this life—possessions, status, wealth, connections—none of it matters to the wise child of God.

Do they matter to you? If you could not give them up, they matter more than you probably want to admit. And if losing them would turn you into an emotional wreck, your priorities need a serious overhaul.

Today, think about that moving van on the day of your death. It doesn’t really matter what you might like to put in it. Your soul is going somewhere, but it won’t move an inch.

Be not afraid when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house increases. For when he dies he will carry nothing away; his glory will not go down after him, Ps 49:16-17.

Dene Ward

Pallets on the Floor

4/3/2015 5 Comments

When I was a child we often visited friends and family, all the kids sleeping in the living room floor on piles of quilts. It was fun because it was different and exciting, and not one of us complained. Dinner was never fancy because none of us were wealthy, but all my aunts could cook as well as my mother and we knew it would be good whatever it was. We practiced the hospitality shown in the Bible to our families, to our neighbors, and to our brothers and sisters in the Lord. What has happened to us?
   Even if we aren’t particularly wealthy, we have fallen for the nonsense that because we cannot offer what the wealthy offer, we should offer nothing at all. How do we excuse it? I don’t have a spare room. I don’t have a bathroom for every bedroom. The spare room I do have is too small. The bathroom is too tiny. My grocery budget is too small and my time too little for cooking. I work. I have an infant in the house who still wakes up at night. And the perennial favorite, “You know, times are different now.”
   Not so much, folks. Lydia worked, yet she made Paul and Silas an offer they couldn’t refuse—she told them they would be insulting her faith if they did not stay with her. Unless I am reading something into it that isn’t there, Priscilla worked right alongside her husband, “for they were tentmakers.” Yet Paul didn’t stay with them for just a night or two—he lived with them for a good while. Abraham was a very busy man—he had more employees than some towns in that day had citizens, yet he not only offered hospitality, he actively looked for people who might need it.
   “But they had servants!” some whine. If you don’t think your modern conveniences fill the place of servants, you have never thought about what it took back then to cook—they started with the animals on the hoof, people! Their cooking involved building a fire from scratch, sometimes in the heat of the day. And here we sit with the meat already butchered in our electric refrigerators, ready to put in our gas or electric ovens. We clean with our vacuum cleaners, pick up ready-made floral arrangements at the grocery store, make sure the automatic shower cleaner and the stuck-on toilet cleaner are still in service, and stop at the bakery for the bread. Then, when it’s all done, we put the dirty dishes in our dishwashers, and we do it all in our air conditioned homes.
   Part of the problem may also be the expectations of guests these days. It isn’t just that people are no longer hospitable—it’s that people are spoiled and self-indulgent. They don’t want to sleep on a sofa. They don’t want to share a bathroom with a couple of kids. They will not eat what is offered. We aren’t talking about health situations like diabetes and deadly allergies. We are talking about people who care more about their figures than their fellowship; people who were never taught to graciously accept what was placed in front of them, even knowing it was the best their hosts could afford, because, “I won’t touch_______________,” (fill in the blank).
   We once ate with a hard-working farm family who had invited us and two preachers over for dinner. Dinner was inexpensive fare--they had five children and had invited us six to share their meal. Later that evening, when we had left their home, we heard those two preachers making fun of what of they had been served and laughing about it. I hope those poor people never got wind of it.
   When we raise our children to act in similarly ungracious ways, when we consider them too precious to sleep on a pallet on the floor, as if their royal hides could feel a miniscule pea beneath all those quilts, what can we expect? Do you think it doesn’t happen? We once had a guest who told me she had rather not sleep where I put her. It was the only place I had left to put her. I already had four other guests when she had shown up at my door unannounced. She was more than welcome—I have taken in unexpected guests many times--but where were this one’s manners?
   Do you know how many times we have been told, “Do you know how far it is out there?” when we invited someone thirty miles out in the country to our home for a meal. Excuse me? Of course we know how far it is—we drive it back and forth at least three times a week just to the church building, not counting other appointments.
   This matter of hospitality worries me. It tells me we have become self-indulgent and materialistic when it comes both to offering it and accepting it. God commands us to Show hospitality to one another without grumbling, 1 Pet 4:9. What has happened to the enjoyment of one another’s company, the encouragement garnered by sharing conversation and bumping elbows congenially in close quarters, and the love nurtured by putting our feet under the same table, by opening not only our homes but our hearts?
   What has happened to the joy of a pallet on the floor?

One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us, Acts 16:14,15.

Dene Ward

Common Sense

3/9/2015 0 Comments

The only newspaper we ever bother to buy, mainly because of the coupons, the crossword puzzle, and the sports page, is the Sunday issue. The coupons pay for it so it isn’t even a guilty pleasure, not that the press is ever much of a pleasure anyway. But the business page one recent week sounded like something you might read in a church bulletin—or at least hear from the pulpit or a Bible class lectern.   Notice:
   “A start [to reduce our stress] is to mitigate the desire to acquire. Folks with a high net worth are frequently coupon clippers and sale shoppers who resist the urge to splurge…Many times the difference between true wealth and ‘advertised’ wealth is that those with true wealth are smart enough not to succumb to the lure of what it can buy.” Margaret McDowell, “Lieutenant Dan, George Bailey, and Picasso,” Gainesville Sun, 12-14-14.
   When I turned the page I found this: “Dress appropriately [for the office party]. Ladies…Lots of skin and lots of leg is inappropriate…Keep it classy.” Eva Del Rio, “Company Holiday Party Do’s and Don’ts for Millennials,” Gainesville Sun, 12/14/14.
   Jesus once told a parable we call “The Unrighteous Steward.” In it, he took the actions of a devious man and applauded his wisdom. He ended it with this statement: For the sons of this world are for their generation, wiser than the sons of the light, Matt 16:8. Jesus never meant that the man’s actions were approved. What he meant was he wished his followers had as much sense as people who don’t even care about spiritual things.
   We still fall for Satan’s traps in our finances, believing that just a little more money will solve all of our problems. We still listen to him when he says that our dress is our business and no one else’s. It isn’t just short-sided to think that accumulating things will make us happy—even experts in that field will tell you it’s not “smart.” It isn’t just a daring statement of individuality to wear provocative clothing, it’s cheap and “classless.”
   If we used our brains a little more, there would be less arguing about what is right and what is wrong. We could figure it out with a little reason and a lot of soul-searching.
   Why is it that I regularly overspend? Because I am looking for love and acceptance from the world? Because I trust a portfolio in hand instead of a God in the burning bush? Because I have absolutely no self-control?
   Why do I insist on wearing clothing that is the opposite of good taste and decorum? Because I do not care about my brothers’ souls? Because I do care about the wrong people’s opinions? Because I am loud and brash and think meekness is a sign of weakness instead of strength? Or maybe it isn’t any of these bad motives—maybe it’s just a lack of wisdom. Is there any wonder that the book of Proverbs is included for us, and that so many times it labels people with no wisdom “fools?”
   Not just wealth and dress, but practically everything we struggle with could be overcome by being as wise as at least some of the “children of this world.” Isn’t it sad that they so often outdo us in good old common sense?

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is, Eph 5:15-17.

Dene Ward

Catching A Dream

1/19/2015 0 Comments

When we kept our grandsons last spring, twenty-month-old Judah usually climbed into my lap every evening as we sat at the table for a final cup of coffee. It took me a minute the first time his little hand reached out in the air, but finally I realized he was trying to catch the steam wafting over my mug, and was completely mystified when it disappeared between his little fingers.
    A lot of people spend their lives trying to catch the steam, vapors that seem solid but disintegrate in their grasping hands. They do it in all sorts of ways, and all of them are useless.
    Do they really think they can stop time? Over 11,000,000 surgical and nonsurgical cosmetic procedures were performed in this country in 2013, and we aren’t talking medically necessary procedures. The top five were liposuctions, breast augmentations, eyelid surgeries, tummy tucks, and nose surgeries.*
    Then there are the folks chasing wealth and security. Didn’t the recent Great Recession, as it is now called, teach them anything? Others are striving to make a name for themselves. These are usually the same folks who tell Christians how pathetic we are to believe that some Higher Power would ever notice we even exist on this puny blue dot in the universe. Yet there they all go looking for fame, fortune, notoriety, beauty, or even their version of eternal life. All of it is nothing more than a dream. It will disappear, if not in a natural disaster or an economic meltdown, then the day they die—and they will die no matter how hard they try not to. They are the ones grasping at dreams which are only a vapor that disappears in a flash.
    Our dream isn’t a dream at all. It is a hope, which in the Biblical sense means it is all but realized. Sin and death have been conquered by a force we can only try to comprehend, by a love we can never repay, and by a will we can but do our best to imitate. Yet there it is, not a wisp of white floating over a warm porcelain mug, but a solid foundation upon which we base our faith. Heb 6:19 calls it “an anchor.” Have you ever seen a real anchor? If there is anything the opposite of a wisp of steam, that’s it—solid and strong, able to hold us steady in the worst winds of life. Tell me how a pert nose and a full bank account can do that!
    The world thinks it knows what is real while we sit like a toddler grasping at steam. When eternity comes, they will finally see that they are wrong. Spiritual things are the only things that last, the only real things at all.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal, 2 Cor 4:6-8.

*Information from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

Dene Ward

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Sensitivity Training

1/13/2015 0 Comments

If there was ever a new church that struggled with its spirituality, it was the church at Corinth. Paul scolded them: And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. [Read that: “you are acting like a bunch of big babies,” and you will get the picture.]   I fed you with milk, not with meat, for you were not yet able to bear it, no, not even now are you able, for you are still carnal, 1 Cor 3:1-3. We have a tendency to think of things sexual when we see that word “carnal,” but Paul tells us in the next phrase or two what it really means: “walking after the manner of men,” in other words, being physically minded instead of spiritually minded. He then spent most of that first letter telling them how to become more spiritually minded.
   Their struggle over spiritual gifts surely has to be the most obvious example. They actually rated them as to importance, using, of course, carnal measurements--the flashier and showier the better. So Paul spends most of chapter 12 telling them that no one is more important than anyone else. Everyone is useful in the body of Christ, and if any one of them was not there, something would be obviously missing. In chapter 14, when their sense of importance is leading to a confused and disorderly assembly because none will yield his “gift” time to another, he actually gives them specific instructions about how to order things, all of which are pure common sense if you have the correct object in mind, the edification of the church rather than the glorification of the individual. He even spells it out several times: if there is no edification, let them keep silence.
   And of course, there is the pitiful business with suing one another, letting things of this physical life effect how they dealt with spiritual brothers and sisters.
   Those poor Corinthians at whom we so often shake our heads are not the only ones with these problems. We are beset by the same weaknesses, and the same feelings. In fact, as I was reading and thinking about these things it suddenly struck me that almost any time I take an idle remark as a personal attack, it falls right into the same category.
   I believe there is such a thing as being sinfully sensitive. Think about it. How many times could Jesus have “gotten his feelings hurt” or “felt insulted?” You could make a list as long as an entire book in the Bible, but he did not allow his feelings to keep him from completing a mission that was more important than anything else in the world.
   When I commit myself to being his disciple, don’t I promise to follow his example? The problem with being too sensitive is that it causes me to stop what I am doing and spend time on nothing but myself, usually moping or pouting, or even beginning a campaign against the other person. Nothing anyone says to me or about me, or that I might even possibly construe to be about me, is an excuse for setting myself up as more important than my mission as Jesus’ disciple. As a mature Christian, those things should roll right off me, because my concern is God’s glorification, not my own. That is what spirituality is all about. And if we cannot even begin to get a handle on it here, why should we be allowed to live in that exalted state for an Eternity?
   Something to think about as we interact with one another today.

Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves, Phil 2:3.The vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult, Prov 12:16.

Dene Ward

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A Fine Whine

7/8/2014 0 Comments

            Americans used to admire “the strong, silent type”—not someone who was uncommunicative, but someone who endured the hardships of life without complaint, a man who always kept a sane head on his shoulders when things got rough. I don’t know what has happened, but nowadays strength seems to be measured by how loudly a man can rant and rave about his lot in life and anyone he can blame for it.

            Our culture has made whining a world class skill. No, we do not call it whining, but that’s what it is. We whine about our jobs, about our neighbors, about our families, about our health, about the government—they give all our hard-earned money to other people, but let them cut one of our entitlement programs and we whine even louder about that. We whine about rising costs, about having to wait in line, about our lifestyles, about the driver in the car in front of us. We whine about the church, about the singing, about the length of sermons, about the preacher, about the elders, and about how hot or cold the building always is. Sometimes I feel like getting out Nathan’s violin and accompanying the dirge. At least it would be easier on the ears—and I don’t even know how to play!

            Look at Numbers 11, the classic example of complaining in the Old Testament. Every place it says weep, weeping, or wept, substitute whine, whining, or whined. That is probably a perfect word for what was going on. Look at Moses’ reaction in v 15. Please allow me to paraphrase: “If this is the way it’s going to be, then do me a favor, Lord, and kill me. I can’t take it any more.” Why anyone would think that whining is a measure of strength is beyond me.

            Whining impugns God’s goodness. Think of all the things God does for us and gives to us, and still we whine. Blessed is the man whom you choose and cause to approach unto you, that he may dwell in your courts.   How can we complain when we have that blessing? We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, your holy Temple, Psa 65:4. Because your lovingkindness is better than life, I will praise you. So I will bless you while I live; I will lift up my hands in your name. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise you with joyful lips, Psa 63:3-5. A far cry from whining, isn’t it?

            I may think that I am above the effects of my culture, that I am not influenced by the rampant materialism that often motivates this whining. All I need to do is make a list of things I consider “necessities” to find out otherwise. All I need to do is keep track of all the times I complain during the day to become thoroughly ashamed. God destroyed those who whined against Moses. Why will he accept my murmuring? The poorest among us is wealthier than 90% of the rest of the world. Imagine that. And far beyond that, life is good, if for no other reason than I have a Savior. In fact, do I need any other reason?

But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, blessed are you; and fear not their fear, neither be troubled, but sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord…1 Peter 3:14,15

Neither murmur as some of them murmured and perished by the Destroyer, 1 Cor 10:10

Dene Ward

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A Life of Luxury

5/15/2014 0 Comments

            A couple of years ago we had one of those weeks to end all weeks. Besides the tropical storm that dumped 13 inches of rain over us and left us without power for several hours, the pump on the well went out, the phones, and thus the modem, went out, the satellite dish went out, the air conditioning in the car went out, and we each had a respiratory virus.

            As I was sitting in the mechanic’s air conditioned waiting room, leaning back on his padded couch with a television droning on should I care to watch and a cup of free coffee between my hands, bemoaning all my misfortunes, I suddenly realized what a luxury it was to do so. A tropical storm had moved almost directly over us, yet we only lost power for a few hours. Thirteen inches of rain had fallen, yet we could still get up and down our road to a dry home; we just couldn’t use the telephones and modem for four days. The air conditioning in the car, something I never even had as a child, was out, but I could still drive it to the dealership, sit in comfort while they fixed it, and my warranty covered it completely. The pump was out so I had to do without running water for five hours. A hundred years ago I wouldn’t even have known what I was missing. What a luxury to be able to complain about such things.

            I saw a promo on television the other night. Some rich, show biz personality was “going ballistic” because the $100 lipstick she bought did not match her evening gown, and she had broken a nail right after a $300 manicure. I remember feeling outraged and downright disgusted with her, but am I any better?

            Compared to most people in the world, we live lives of luxury and don’t even realize it. I am sure many of those impoverished people would have felt the same outrage at me had they heard me complaining.

            In the Old Testament, Israel became so wealthy that all they cared about was living lives of ease. They stopped being concerned about the things a true people of God should be concerned with, like sin and evil in the world. While many did not actually partake of those things, they simply let them keep on existing. The important things to them were building large, comfortable homes, entertaining in style, and having others wait on them. That is one of the reasons they were destroyed, as Amos plainly put it. The elite, the “first” in the nation, were the first to be carried away captive.

            The next time we start our “poor little me” lists, we need to take a good look at them. Let’s at least realize what a luxury it is to have such things to complain about and be grateful, and let’s save our real complaints for things that truly matter.


Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria…Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves out on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the middle of the stall, who sing idle songs to the sound of the harps and like David, invent themselves instruments of music, who drink in bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph. Therefore they shall now be the first of those who go into exile, and the revelry of those who stretch themselves out shall pass away. The Lord God has sworn by himself, declares the Lord, the God of hosts, I abhor the pride of Jacob and hate his strongholds, and I will deliver up his city and all that is in it, Amos 6:1, 4-8.

Dene Ward

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