{Bigger Picture Moments} Everything Became Shadow

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One glance at an email, my newsfeed, the mail, commercials, billboards...and my mind is filled with wanting what I don't have. All I see is want, forgetting to look around and see all that I already have. 

I fill a list with things I must have to be content and whole, but it is never enough.  There is always something more, just one more thing I must have.

I hear my children fighting over toys.  "Mine!" is their constant cry and somewhere in my frustration and weariness at disciplining time and time again...is an aching, grieving realization that they are just like me. 

What am I teaching them?  They see a shiny new toy, a fun new game, a cute new outfit, and instantly the whining of "maybe we can get that", "but I not have that yet", and "I really, really want it" becomes their new cry. 

Why?  How do they know what they have is not enough?  How do they see the grass greener beyond their own front door?

They see me and they watch and they study.  They want to be just like me and so they mirror my every move.  

I see a new outfit and ooh and ahh over its finery...only to come home and moan a closet full of clothes that no longer measure up. 

I hear the word "sale" and make a list of all the things we must have.  I watch and observe others, complaining about all they have while I don't.

I am never satisfied and it is never enough, because the things of this world are temporary and insignificant. The only way to be filled is to satisfy my longings in Him.

That new toy breaks and that new outfit stains and before long it will all be dust, piled in a dark corner, long forgotten and good for nothing, mere shadows of the promises and hopes I thought they held.

When all that stuff is gone, my longing will still be there, a soul emptied of contentment and joy and life because I filled it with the temporary instead of the eternal.

Only Christ can satisfy, because only His grace is all sufficient and more than enough.  Out of the dust we were formed and back to dust we return, but our souls will always remain.  The difference between an empty soul and a soul filled to overflowing is Christ.

I push a cart full of little ones carefully watching everything I do through a store full of stuff that will never be enough and I wonder how to captivate their attention away from it all and to the only One who will ever be enough. 

Before the cries of want even begin, I remind them of all that we already have and of the One who has graciously given us all things.  I talk of using our money wisely for things we need and only sometimes things we want. 

"Oh, that's really pretty and it would be nice to have...but we don't need it and we already have so much.  Sometimes it's fun to buy things we want, but only when we've already bought the things we need like good food that will make you healthy and strong.

And even then, we need to save up our money and maybe we should spend the extra on adventure and time well spent together.  Don't you think so?"

They smile and nod, giggling as we talk about the things we want to do together and how much more fun it is to be together than to have more stuff.

But, even more, we talk about how we don't deserve anything that we do have, but how God loves us so much and blesses us with more than enough. 

We talk about heaven too and what a day that will be when His face we see.  And somehow, as we purpose to fix our eyes on Him, His light exposes the shadows in the corner and reminds us daily that all we really need is Jesus.