Devotionals by Dr. M. Craig Barnes
Already you have all that you want! --
Occasionally when we read Scripture, we hit a verse like a speed bump and have to slow down. This is one of those verses. Do we really already have all that we want? "Maybe the Apostle Paul meant that we have all need." No, he means we already have all that we want. At least, that is true for anyone who is paying attention to life.
Contemporary culture constantly teaches us to want more. Each day hundreds of advertisements cross our sight, and none of them is simply marketing products to give us what we already want. Instead, they tell us what we want. Before you know it, you have taken these ideas into your heart, and have started to think that you really do want what they are peddling. It is a small step then to think that you also want a better job, a nicer lifestyle, a more promising future. None of these things is inherently bad, but the Bible does challenge the concept of wanting more.
Wanting is a bad narcotic. The more of it you take in, the more it starts to ruin your life, until your fleeting years are wasted with insatiable appetite. So out of concern for your soul, the Bible teaches gratitude for what you've already received. When you discipline the heart away from wanting and focus it on gratitude for what God is providing, you're free to enjoy life as a gift. Then the only thing you really want is an opportunity to give thanks, but that's just one more thing that you already have.
-- Craig Barnes