I am giving up shopping for lent.
Honestly, there is nothing in the world besides PURE CONVICTION that made me cave- and other than the fact that yesterday I opened a book my super friend Taylor Yves lent me to explain Lent, and reasons behind fasting.
Now, usually I am not a bible dipper-
Bible dipper (n):
Person who opens bible to a random page in order to hear MAGICALLY from God in an out-of-context attempt to revolve the universe (and Bible) around themselves.
However- yesterday, I "dipped" into a page of this book, and opened to the page on:
G r e e d .
OY VEY.So, I am reading about how our accumulated possessions eventually make us lose TRUST in God's provision. And when we begin to think he can't provide some clothing, then might be tempted to think he can't provide housing, and then maybe we think he can't provide a family, or eternal life, or even himself, and then maybe we might start thinking he can't provide anything at all.
SO now I know why I've been hanging on to my friends, my house, my milk, my college life, my old habits, my clothing, my stupid bed sheets, my dressers, my shoes, my sweaters, my toothbrushes... everything.
I just don't trust God to provide all the things he provided once... again.
The harder I try to attain these things on my own, the less I believe that God has the ability to provide them.
And the more I work to provide these things for myself, the less generous I become- because when you work for something, you don't want to give it up. You don't want to give it away to someone else.
I didn't work for my apartment- God handed it to me on a silver platter. That's why whenever I even think to withhold it from someone, I am convicted to be generous.
In the past, I trusted God for even slices of bread- and when people asked to borrow bread, I didn't hoard it- because I knew if he provided it once, he could do it again.
My greed has blinded me to the truth of God's provision.
I feel like God is trying to bless me by showing me his provision, his love.
He is able to give us everything we need- down to a piece of bread.
And, I personally, never really ask him.
So, for the next 39 days, I will give up being greedy.
No more greed.
And probably I won't complain either. If everything I have comes from the Lord, and his provision, what is there to complain about?
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. And he can giveth whatever he want. And he can damn well taketh too.
oooh, this will be a tough one. my friend at church actually gave up shopping, too. i am really glad you read that because it's helped me to understand more about this season. when i was reading the other morning i thought of you and i wanted to share. i am particularly interested in the part about "fasting and meditation."
ReplyDeleteyeah, it has been very helpful. But mostly, I am just very greedy :)
ReplyDeleteThis is slightly off-topic, and maybe way off-target, but I'll throw it out there in case it's relevant at all.
ReplyDelete"SO now I know why I've been hanging on to my friends, my house, my milk, my college life, my old habits, my clothing, my stupid bed sheets, my dressers, my shoes, my sweaters, my toothbrushes... everything."
So I've been reading "The Hero With A Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell in an attempt to better understand story, myth, and character development (ostensibly because I would like to write more short stories at some point). Interestingly, it has also put forth ideas and concepts about life (in general and our passage through it) that I do not think about often. While the book is not "Christian", uses Christianity alongside other "myths", and has some questionable axioms and logical derivations, I have found some helpful insights.
The one that is somewhat relevant here I believe is the concept of death and rebirth. Campbell puts forth that the monomyth (and our actual lives) is the story of passing into the magical, unknown, deep places of our subconscious, basically dying, and being reborn as something new, then returning. It's more complicated than that, but that is the general idea.
For us, we need only look to what Christ said:
"Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.'" -Mark 8:34-35
"In reply Jesus declared, 'I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.'" -John 3:3
We know that Christ is calling us to die to ourselves and be reborn in Him. And hopefully, on some level, that is attractive to us (though not easy to give up oneself). But this is more than just a one-time deal. We know that this must be a continual process in our lives with Christ (I admit that I fail far far more often than succeed). And, like much of God's truths, this is echoed in other ways in the rest of our life as well.
I am referring to our passage through the veil of time and the seasons, phases, and stages of life. At certain points in life we must let go of the past, let it become what it is: the past. The old us must die so that a new us can be born. We are still ourselves: same, but different as well (The mystery of life and God is nothing if not paradoxical). Puberty, college, courtship, entering the workforce, marriage, children, retirement, and hundreds of smaller, or different, transitions. We enter in to a new stage of life and must be reborn into our new role. Trying to maintain the past life during these times can be dangerous as it can make us lame in the new stage of life and stunt our development.
(Ha, hit the character limit)
ReplyDeleteSo, Luisa. Perhaps you do need to let go of these things you mention. I don't presume to know you terribly well, and I am no expert on such matters, so take what I say with a nice big grain of salt (one of those rock salt pieces they use to ice the roads with). It sounds like you had an awesome life in college, with fantastic friends and real growth. But you are past that now. At some point we all have to go through what you are going through (to varying degrees). The truth is you have a new life now, and you have to live that life, in that role, and not live in the past.
I want to be clear that I am not saying we have to sever ties from our past, or our friends, and commit some sort of excommunication of everything from that period. It's just the question of where does your heart lie? If your heart lies in the past alone then how can you live in the present or look to the future? How much harder is it to accept new things that God might want to bring into your life if in your soul you want everything to remain the same?
I bring this all up from the glimpses of things you have said in the past regarding how much you loved your college life. If I misjudged I do apologize. I spent several painful years of transition myself and know it can suck.
I know this was way long and not even on the topic of greed (which I have plenty of opinions about as well). Yea...I should probably get back to work...