05202015 Bringing it home
Recently a young man told me, “Money is my new life. Without
it I cannot have a car to get me to a job so that I can live. From now on I
will keep everything I earn so I will never be in this situation again.”
Another young mother lamented the fact that she had to leave her children with
a sitter that recently invited her abusive boyfriend to live with her. She
couldn’t afford a better sitter and she couldn’t afford to quit her job or take
time off to look for a better situation. In our culture it is easy to learn
that money is the source of happiness and the most desirable acquisition
possible. As adults, we know that we need money to survive in our society.
However, how is that translating to your children? Are they getting the
impression that earning money is important thing in life? Is acquiring
“things” what will bring happiness?
In his book, Unlacing
The Heart, Henry Freeman tells about leaving his position as V.P. of Earlham
College to spend 12 months in an orphanage in war-torn El Salvador simply to
love on the children there. Out of that experience he states, “Perhaps the most
important thing I have learned is that happiness is found when our search for
it is abandoned. Indeed, for most of us, happiness sits on the other side of
our walls waiting patiently for us to open our doors to the joy and pain of the
world around us.” Good American parents tend to make our
children the center of our lives. We provide them with all they need and top it
off with all we wanted as kids but didn’t receive and throw in some excess just
because we ‘love’ them and want to show it.
The result of our ample provision for them seems to be an epidemic of
entitlement and a much longer wish list. How will they learn what is on the
other side of “our walls” if all they care about is self?
Dad and Mom, it is your responsibility to open the windows
to the world for your children. If they become more outwardly focused and less
self-centered it will be because YOU showed them how to give to others;
sometimes out of your wealth and sometimes out of your need. Don’t take lightly
Jesus last words to his followers to “Go into all the world…” When you open the eyes of your children to
the needs of children around the world they can learn to be givers, not takers.
I know how fun it is to get gifts for your children… I am a
grandma! That makes it even more fun! But take a look at their bedroom? How many
days a week is it difficult to find a path through because of all the toys and
clothes and shoes they possess? Do they really NEED all of that? Why are we making that the norm? It is a very
difficult habit to feed and our consumption ends up consuming us.
Did you know that:
for the price of 2 kids meals a
month you can feed a child for the entire month https://www.fmsc.org/
for the price of an average legos
set you can sponsor a child for a month http://www.compassion.com/sponsor_a_child/
for about the cost of downloading
Minecraft on your device you can purchase 10 chicks that will grow to provide daily
protein for a starving family http://horizoninternationalinc.com/give-hope/gift-catalog/animal-husbandry.html
It seems quite a natural thing to compare ourselves to
others. Why not open their eyes to the disparity between what they have and
what the majority of children in other countries have? That is a comparison that
just may grow them into compassionate givers who will change our world. Our
kids will make the difference. What difference are we coaching them to make?
Watch this video and see the difference one child who looked outside of himself
is making in the world.
“People who want to get rich are
tempted. They fall into a trap. They are tripped up by wanting many foolish and
harmful things. Those who live like that are dragged down by what they do. They
are destroyed and die. Love for money causes all kinds of evil. Some people
want to get rich. They have wandered away from the faith. They have wounded
themselves with many sorrows…Command people who are rich in this world not to
be proud. Tell them not to put their hope in riches. Wealth is so uncertain.
Command those who are rich to put their hope in God. He richly provides us with
everything to enjoy. Command the rich to do what is good. Tell them to be rich in doing
good things. They must give freely. They must be willing to share. In that
way they will put riches away for themselves. It will provide a firm basis for
the next life. Then they will take hold of the life that really is life.”
1 Timothy 6:9-10, 17-19
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