When success is equated with excess
The ambition for excess wrecks us
As top of the mind becomes the bottom line
When success is equated with excess
Switchfoot, American Dream
I'm perspiring. Sweating. I am damp and sticky.
For some stupid reason, I decided that today was a good day to clean out my room.
It's 89 degrees out. It's humid. The upstairs of the house captures the heat and intensifies it. The sun beats on the siding, making my room a pleasant oven. My door won't stay open, so the warmth is locked inside.
I have a lot of stuff roasting in my hot, sticky room with me.
Masses of clothes that I have never worn. Half a dozen old stuffed animals crammed under my bed. A mass of partly-finished art projects, a blank canvas that's dented because I left it on the floor for so long, a tacky wolf pillow from an arcade, dozens of half-filled notebooks, and numerous other useless things (including my llama hat -- I need that.)
I was reaching under my bed when I began sweating profusely.
I was pulling out my easel, latch-hook project from six years ago, a Webkinz, and an old backpack.
I soon afterwards gave up. My arms are too short, and my head's too big to fit under the bed.
That panda will just have to stay there.
Things don't make me happy.
They don't make me feel accomplished. I don't feel complete, or satisfied.
They make me feel helpless, like I'm drowning. There's so much stuff.
The American legacy, in all its glory, comes down to this: buy things, get things, and then buy new things.
Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf.
Proverbs 11:28
Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.
Proverbs 11:14
But I don't want stuffed animals.
I don't want more clothes than I can fit in my dresser and closet.
I don't want that bracelet making kit. I hoard my money away in a virtual bank account, and I don't think about it.
What's wrong with me? Am I exempt from Solomon's teachings?
I know I'm American.
I can't handle this heat. There should be an AC in here.
I'm on one of the seven computers in this house, I'm ten feet away from my iPod, and my phone's on my bed.
I have my brothers microphone that's shaped like a snow globe, a Phineas and Ferb poster, and a shelf full of tacky, decorative figurines.
Yeah, I'm definitely American.
I use spell-check to spell "definitely."
No one receives satisfaction from things.
Aha. There it is. I'm not special!
Every mother wishes that junk drawer wasn't there.
I wish I didn't have a giant box full of things that I don't know what to do with on the floor.
But I still buy stuff.
All. the. time.
Two things I ask of you;
deny them not to me before I die:
Remove far from me falsehood and lying;
give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me,
lest I be full and deny you
and say, “Who is the Lord?”
or lest I be poor and steal
and profane the name of my God.
Proverbs 30:7-9
If that's the case, why has God blessed me with so much?
Wouldn't it be better if I had just enough to get by?
Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Philippians 4:11-13
I wasn't intending for this to be preachy, but there it is.
I'm going to sort of my piles of junk now.
This stuff has got to go, and I have cooled to a dry and warm state.
Time to be content?
<3 SAM!
