Instant satisfaction
A friend of mine has just bought a place to live, and I've just bought a car. Yesterday, she and I were discussing the stresses of said purchases: weighing up the pros and cons of various options, balancing that with your budget, arranging all the details, etc.
Our conversation made me realise how little we are trained, by the society we live in (at least in Sydney), to compromise, or to wait for things. We're not taught to buy something that will do, rather than the ‘perfect’ car/house/clothes/furniture/whatever it is. Instead, we're taught to get everything we want immediately. So when we come to making a major purchase, we get very stressed because we keep thinking that there's a better deal just around the corner, or because the car/house we've found doesn't have everything we wanted it to have.
Shopping around can be a very wise thing to do, but if you have found something that is adequate for your needs, then shopping around can simply make you more and more dissatisfied. I have discovered this in the past week.
What a contrast, then, to read Matthew 6:25-34:
Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
This is as true today as it was when Jesus said it. May we take it to heart.