Can't Live Without It!
Easter Greetings!
This morning when I opened my Yahoo account, one of the stories caught my attention. It was “10 Things We Can’t Live Without”. It is an interesting article about a woman who ends up just about homeless living in a Walmart parking lot in a trailer someone gave her. She had to give up almost everything but insisted on keeping her laptop. The article then goes on to list the 10 things people find hard to part with. I went through the list to see how I compared. The top 10 are:
portable computers
high speed internet access
smart phones
education
movies
tv
music downloads
pets
booze
coffee
Recently I did give up quite a few things due to a shift in my finances. From this list the things I gave up were: my internet access, tv, movies, and music downloads. I still made coffee at home, because friends gave me a coffee maker. I only drink alcohol socially so giving up booze wasn’t a problem. Couldn’t part with the pets or my smart phone although I had planned to downgrade my phone. I’m not in school so I didn’t have to give up education. Still paying on those student loans though. *smile* I would have gladly given them up if I could! *smile*
Of all the things I gave up during that time, the hardest thing to be without was the internet. I felt very isolated from the world when I was home. The internet keeps me connected to people. It doesn’t seem right that the internet should be that important in my life, but I found out that it was.
If push came to shove though, could we truly live without these things? They are just things. The famous verses in Matthew 6: 25 - 27 tell us: “ I tell you not to worry about your life. Don’t worry about having something to eat, drink, or wear. Isn’t life more than food or clothing? (More than the internet, IPhone, tv and coffee??) Look at the birds in the sky! They don’t plant or harvest (or talk on phones but sing delightful songs!). They don’t even store grain in barns. Yet your Father in heaven takes care of them. Aren’t you worth more than birds? Can worry make you live longer?" Actually I think they have found that worry makes us live shorter lives.
I can live without things. I can live even without my smart phone even if I don’t want to. I have deemed many of these items to be needful things, when in actuality they are just things. Relationships are really all that matter especially our relationship with God. I need to be in touch with that relationship even more than I am in touch with my phone, computer and tv. I appreciate my church family, our worship services, our times of fellowship, my Bible study groups and friends who help keep me centered and focused on the things of God that I can easily get distracted away from.
God is with us as we try harder focus on God!
Hope
