My sister has just returned from an
extended trip to Bangladesh. She
tells of appalling poverty and all
its attendant problems- lack of
adequate safe drinking water,
beggars on the streets, lepers and
ill people simply lying down where
they fall in the street, waiting to
die, as they can not afford to be
treated by a doctor. Yet she tells
me, the people she got to know have
a joy and exuberance for life that
is infectious. She was often a guest
at their homes- homes they were
immensely proud of, yet by our
standards, were not even fit to be a
chicken coup. Just bits of
corrugated iron standing against a
building wall or a rickety hut on
stilts and built on the edge of a
sewerage infected river.
Now I certainly wouldn’t want to
have to live like that. But then I
wasn’t born in a third-world
country. I have choices that can
make my life more enjoyable. But
what if I didn’t? What would I be
like if I lost all my possessions?
Do I cling tightly to my possessions
to the point that they have become
my source of happiness and
well-being? I am sure I would miss
my possessions- but losing them
wouldn’t put me in such a tail-spin
that I couldn’t recover my sense of
well-being and joy of life. Many
people cling so closely to the
myriad of possessions they have and
get so involved in accumulating more
and maintaining it that it does
become their sense of identity and
joy. Life is more than possessions.
I believe that God calls us to be
good stewards of our finances, home
and possessions. But if ever we find
that our happiness and fulfillment
comes from them, then we are in
danger of becoming idolatrous. I am
sure we can think of many people
whose whole life is wrapped up in
their home, clothing, cars and so
on. Their whole life’s purpose is to
accumulate more and maintain it to
the exclusion of all else. Including
God. They have not realized that our
identity is in who we are in Christ,
not who we are in designer clothes,
fast cars and huge houses. If we
exclude all else then we are in
danger of losing ourselves and the
joy of living with just what we
need. Because materialism and
accumulating possessions grows into
greed and discontentment. We never
have enough.
The people of Bangladesh have
nothing, but have learnt through
necessity that true happiness is not
found in possessions. They have
channeled their energies into
building a strong network of support
in family and friends. For the
little they do have, they are
grateful and happy. Would we be as
grateful if we had little worldly
possessions? I am sure most of us
wouldn’t be.
As lovely as all our labor saving
devices, leisure toys, our beautiful
clothing and palatial homes are (I
say palatial because even the
smallest apartment would be a palace
to impoverished Bangladeshi people),
we must guard against making them
our primary source of happiness and
identity. World events recently have
shown how quickly we can have these
things snatched from us. If we have
clutched these things too tightly to
ourselves, and have placed our
happiness in materialism’s hands and
not God’s, then we are in for a very
rough ride if something deprives us
of them.
Saint Paul has said that he has
learnt to be happy in plenty and in
lack. It is a very profound
statement. The question we should
ask ourselves is: have we? And if we
honestly find that we can’t be happy
in lack, then we should do some
honest soul searching! Happiness
should not be wrapped up in our
abundance of things, but firstly in
our salvation and then in our
network of family and friends. It is
not wrong to have possessions in
abundance. But it is wrong to place
one’s self-esteem, identity and
happiness in its pursuit. Can we
still sing a song of praise to God
amidst lack or loss of our worldly
possessions? It is a question worth
asking ourselves: and it’s one only
we can answer. May you find that you
can answer truthfully and say that
material things are not your only
source of happiness and be able to
declare as Saint Paul:
“Not that I speak in regard to need,
for I have learned in whatever state
I am, to be content. I know how to
be abased and I know how to abound.
Everywhere and in all things I have
learned both to be full and to be
hungry, both to abound and to suffer
need.” Philippians4:11-12
© Glenys Robyn Hicks 2005
