Want to know how to be rich? Let’s take a lesson from the squirrel I saw in the park last week. It begins with being grateful for what you have, rather than coveting what has fallen beneath someone else’s tree.
The world trains us to live a lie, acting like frantic creatures forever chasing after what we don’t have. In our race toward bigger, better, more, we can overlook the Gifts at hand. And so it is our wanting makes us poor.
Looking back over the map of my own erratic path, I see the waste of my own chasing. With a room, I aimed for an apartment. From the apartment I wanted a duplex. Renting, I decided I must own. Like the squirrel, I had enough for a meal, but wanted a pantry stocked for a feast.
Some chases are good. They’re about stretching – growing into who and where we were Created to be. But when is it our chasing becomes a needless squandering of Gifts? Robbing ourselves of this day’s wonder, by endlessly craving more?
What if the essence of how to be rich – every need met, never having to worry about material things again – is to first be grateful every day for exactly what we have. Realizing what we’ve been Given, ARE riches to those with less.
Giving thanks for what we have, we may discover we are richer than we know.
Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights… ~ James 1:17
Amen.
QUESTION: What do you have to be grateful for today that might seem like riches to someone with less?
Feeling so happy and blessed that you and I belong to each other, Joanna!
You are Riches to me as well : )
I like it when, even a few weeks after reading on of your posts, the pearls of encouragement are still being recycled in my heart and mind. For instance, ” the waste of the chasing.” Once, when stepping over the border into Mexico for the day, the extent of the poverty being suffered there was brought home to me. Women, with infants in their arms, sat begging on the hard pavement. A small paper bag blew across the street in the breeze and a poor and ragged little boy chased after it. No doubt hoping that it might contain some tidbit to relieve his hunger.
I have to admit that it is easy to get caught up in my own aches and pains or to get yearning after more of the world’s ” nice” things. Yet, eventually, it all ends up at the dump, doesn’t it.
Wow, Terri… So true. It’s so easy to fixate on what we don’t have or how bad me may feel at the moments. But we who can go to a doctor for treatment are rich. If we have access to the medication to ease the pain or fight the infection, we are rich. If we even have a refrigerator and it actually has food in it, we are rich. It’s so easy to focus instead on those who have more than us, instead of those who have less. Your final words here really struck a nerve with me. “It all ends up in the dump.” I’m going to keep that statement in mind each time I think I have to have something more. Is it worth trading hours of our lives to earn the dollars in order to buy that thing that will eventually end up in the dump? Is it worth that much of my life or my husband’s? Thank you for giving me even more food for thought…