I find discontent creeping up on me, and it's the materialistic kind that I naively thought I was immune to. I watch married friends my age buy houses, get dogs, and generally start an "American Dream" sort of life, while my husband and I live in a nice but small apartment, can't afford a pet, even a free one (and someone at our church as been offering us a free kitty for months!), because of the ridiculous $1,000 deposit and monthly fee on top of it that our apartment complex demands, and we are barely scraping by on our combined incomes, with our parents helping us tremendously to make ends meet at this point. My temptation is to look at our life together and think, "We must be doing something wrong if, at ages 24 and 26, we are still in this spot." But then I think about it, and I wonder who says we're "doing something wrong." Do our friends say that, behind our backs? I hope not, but I also doubt it! Do our parents? No, they were in similar situations as young marrieds too. Does culture? Maybe. But since when should we listen to our culture, especially this American one that is often so anti-Biblical in so many ways? Does God think we're doing something wrong? No. And His opinion is most important. In fact, I think there's something good to being poor, and having to be creative, and not being able to drop a hat and buy the next new thing on a whim. At least for me, it's teaching me to remember what's really important, and this Christmas, it's not a pile of gifts under our adorable four foot tree.
Christmas really is my favorite holiday. I wish Easter was my favorite holiday, and maybe it would be if culture didn't screw up the resurrection of Jesus with pink fluffy bunnies and colored eggs. But I love Christmas decorations, Christmas songs, Christmas food, and the excuse to be with family. More than that, I love that the God of the Universe condescended to be born in a smelly barn and spend His first night in this world sleeping in a feeding trough (I have a mental image of some whiskered donkey munching on the hay that He was laying on...the germs involved would no doubt freak out any modern mother today). God did not come into the world in a flashy way. Quite the oppposite. Counterintuitive, to be sure, but God wasn't about to reveal Himself to flashy people anyway. He was going to meet sinners at their level, in the dirt and grime and hay. I also love the reminder that Christmas brings, and that is that Jesus is coming back, and when He does, it won't be a secret. The whole world will know, and every knee will bow. I will either see that day this side of eternity or on the other side, and I personally can't wait! Emmanuel. God with us! Awesome!
I like this song that I have heard on the radio quite a bit this month:
"What kind of King would give up His throne,
Come for His people lost and alone?
What kind of King would give everything,
Save all His own and life to them bring?
Only a King who lays down His crown.
Only a King whose love knows no bounds.
Only a King who’s willing to wear pauper’s clothes,
For He knows He’s not only a king.
What kind of King would leave all behind,
Come to a place where all He would find
Was rejection and loss, counting the cost,
Yet on His own He gave up His throne?
Only a King who lays down His crown.
Only a King whose love knows no bounds.
Only a King who’s willing to wear pauper’s clothes,
For He knows, only a King who lays down His crown.
Only a King whose love knows no bounds.
Only a King who’s willing to wear pauper’s clothes,
For He knows He’s not only a king.
Only this King.
No other king.
O, no other, no other,
No other king.
No other king."
I love this post! You know, looking back (not like it was super long ago), but when Nick and I lived together in that err "charming" apartment downtown and had to cuddle with the kitties because it was cold etc. are some of my favorite memories. :)
ReplyDeleteI used to feel that way. Still do sometimes. Then I realize that it's not necessarily that my peers are doing better. They may have more debt or maybe grandma and grandpa helped them along the way or whatever the circumstance is. Even as I got older and worried less about the necessities I wasn't any happier. It really is what's inside that's more important. I firmly believe in praying for God's will. I have never been steered wrong, even if at some point I questioned getting something I didn't want. In His time, I've learned. In His time, not ours. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd as comfy as it would be, I don't know if I even want the American dream. I would be worried it would make me complacent towards the needs of the world. I don't want to be complacent.
ReplyDelete