All the bells and whistles

So, I'm reading Tim Challies blog (linked on this site to the left) and his latest post is talking about all the choices we have and if we really need all those choices in everything from food to cell phones. He made me think, a lot. And I had several flashbacks - almost like in the movies but with not as much make up.

I remembered an economics professor (remember now, I was in college before Reagan brought the Iron Curtain down) discussing the USSR. He talked about a young man who was able to escape to the United States only to feel like he was losing his mind just going into the grocery store. To his dismay, when he went to choose a can of beans he was completely befuddled. There were baked beans, green beans, french cut green beans, waxed yellow beans, kidney beans, pinto beans, on and on they went. There was an entire section in the store with hundreds of canned beans. He left in tears because he wasn't capable of making that decision. Whew, I was floored. I had never known a time in life when I wasn't able to make a decision. Not all my decisions were good ones (mom finally had to give me only three choices of outfits daily because left to myself, I'd have not made good clothing choices)but because I was raised with the practice of decision making daily and parents who had the presence of mind to teach me how to make good decisions, I usually did pretty well. And most of the time, when I didn't, I knew full well that they weren't good decisions but did them anyway...

Another flashback reminded me of a huge revelation I had in my life when I was only 30. I say only because I am far from that now. Michael and I owned our first house. It was modest but in some ways not so much when you considered others in the same age category. He made pretty good money and we got a good deal on the house. We weren't living above our means but we did have debt and I was thinking that it'd be a good idea to get rid of it. I didn't know how to go about that. (I'd never heard of Dave Ramsey at that point, actually he was probably neck deep in debt at that time anyway). I found myself at my friend Ginger's house. She lived down the street from me and her house was more modest than mine, she and her husband were older than Michael and I, and they had their house furnished much more sparingly than we did. Until that day, I sort of felt bad for them. But on that day, she revealed (I'm convinced led by the Holy Spirit just for my benefit) what their mortgage payment was and that they were debt free. I felt like I was hit in the head with a baseball bat. I looked around at her house. Sure, I thought that mine, overall was prettier, maybe "fancier", maybe more "decorator-looking" but it served them well. They had plenty of room, they lived in the same nice subdivision we did AND they knew exactly how much money on any given day they had to spend if they wanted to go out to dinner. They had money in a savings account to take a vacation - actually 3 if they wanted to. It dawned on me that maybe, less IS more!

Then I thought about my sister-in-law and a conversation she and I had several years ago when she was building her house. She and my brother-in-law were building quite a nice house, on a beautiful lot and to be honest, they could have purchased the highest end appliances that they desired. Although I assumed money was no object to them, in their minds, it probably was, maybe a little. But she is reasonable and she knows where their money comes from and to her, being stewardly was and still is important regardless of how much money is in her bank account. So she told me that she chose one refrigerator over another because the price difference was astronomical and because the cheaper one looked the same, performed the same, it just didn't have all the bells and whistles and to be honest, she didn't need the bells and whistles.

I just got off of the Sears.com site. Do you know you can save 500 dollars just choosing a decent stainless dishwasher over a top of the line maxed out dishwasher? I had no idea you could spend over 1000 dollars on a dishwasher period. Of course, stewardship includes buying wisely, not all brands are equal, but you know what I am getting at. Why do we buy what we do? And should we not look at our purchases more wisely?

I say this because if I had budgeted 1000 dollars for a dishwasher and chose to be more reasonable and bought one for 500 dollars, I could give that extra to the church building fund, to an organization like Samaritan's Purse, or to a youth in my church trying to afford to take a mission trip to Peru. (More on that later since that is where Drew is headed in June) The point is that these times are hard times and hard times call for us to examine ourselves. What or Who are we living for? It's wonderful to drive a nice new car but if you had one that was used and performed just as well but cut your payments in half, wouldn't it be worth it to do that if by tithing the left over you provided space for 5 more babies in the nursery? Or if sending that boy to Peru meant confirming his call to missions which over his lifetime meant he had the chance to lead hundreds to Christ? What if being committed to a building program instead of Ruth's Chris's on a regular basis meant expansion of the worship center which allowed for hundred's of family's who wanted to hear the pure word of God preached to sit comfortably and grow in their Christian walk?

I went last weekend to a thrift store in Alabama with a friend who's husband makes more money in a week then we see in months. She is a thrift store freak. She is always dressed beautifully and looks like she stepped off of a magazine cover. The other day - she found a black sequined gown for a formal gathering she had to attend, at a thrift store, for 15 bucks. I can tell you that the extra couple hundred she could have paid went to sending someone on a mission trip.

I guess our emphasis on tithing last Sunday has me focused on how we, Michael and I, and we, the body of Christ view our money, our possessions, and our talents. I guess I am remembering that they come from our Heavenly Father and I know so much about Him that my life is different than it was 25 years ago when I first met Him. And most of my growth has come from church or Bible Studies attended at church. I want that for a whole lot of other people. But if I think that having all the bells and whistles, the best of everything, the most state-of-the-art electronic device is the most important thing then I am going to have to come to terms with the fact that I may not hear God say the one thing to me that I long to hear Him say. That is "Well done, my good and faithful servant."