New Year, New Mercies--1 Timothy 6:6-7

Day 6

Interesting that this Scripture comes up in Paul Tripp’s New Year, New Mercies devotional, one day after we received an email from our tax guy with a new on-line tax organizer to work through and one day before I pay bills for the month.

1 Timothy 6:6-7 6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.

When I became a widower, the cruel irony was that I became more financially comfortable.

I sold our house and moved to a condo.  My expenses dropped considerably.

I didn’t buy new stuff–I just shoved a house’s worth of stuff into my new condo and made it work.

 I spent money on golf, booze, eating out, and traveling.  Not much else.

Maybe that’s a total lack of vision, preparedness, and inability to pivot, but I wasn’t sorted out emotionally yet and any spiritual reawakening was years away.

What else was there to spend money on?

More and better stuff?

For what?

I was definitely looking horizontally for relief–trying to find my new identity as a widower.

Tripp writes:

“Sin causes us to look horizontally for what can only ever be found vertically. So we look to creation for life, hope, peace, rest, contentment, identity, meaning and purpose, inner peace, and motivation to continue. The problem is that nothing in creation can give you these things. Creation was never designed to satisfy your heart. Creation was made to be one big finger pointing you to the One who alone has the ability to satisfy your heart. Many people will get up today and in some way will ask creation to be their savior, that is, to give them what only God is able to give.”

There are over 80 golf courses in the Myrtle Beach area and a bar every 20 feet and that’s still not enough to make the hurt, grief, and loneliness go away.

When I began reading, reflecting, and writing on The Word, I could feel Jesus healing my heart.

Over time, I reentered the dating world; I made all the mistakes–some comical, some more grievous–and I began to shift my gaze upwards.

When I did, Karen hove into view.

I remarried and Karen and I are now MORE financially comfortable together.

We could have pooled our resources and found a bigger, more expensive condo on the beach–but we haven’t.

So far, we’ve paid for new closets and a double recliner.

We aren’t extravagant.

But we did travel to Portugal, Chicago, and numerous little places up and down the East Coast like Asheville and Williamsburg.

Not stuff, but experiences.

We are getting ready to look into upgrading our kitchen–and that seems normal to me.

Is a new kitchen what Paul is warning Timothy about?

John Piper clarifies Paul’s warning in Desiring God:  Meditations of a Christian Hedonist:

“What Paul is warning us against is not the desire to earn money to meet our needs and the needs of others, he is warning against the desire to have more and more money and the ego boost and material luxuries it can provide.”

Is wanting kitchen cabinets not made out of particle board a bad thing?

I don’t think so.

Denny Burk writes:

“The desire for riches results in temptation toward evil. This desire is a “snare” because it traps the greedy by their own desires. Once the desires are enacted in deeds, they result in “ruin and destruction.” This is why Paul warns not against the use of money but against the illicit and idolatrous desire for it. Money itself is not the root of all kinds of evils. Nor is the use of money. Rather, it is the love of money that brings forth countless kinds of evil in a person’s life. And so Paul warns that “this craving” for money can lead someone to “wander” away from the faith.”

I think if I live in a way which honors God and stay satisfied with whatever I have, and continue to possess a strong spiritual life, I can make it through life’s difficulties.

Maybe not unfazed, but at least with a sense of continuing joy.

Our finances aren’t really going to matter anyway.

Jen Wilkin writes in Ten Words To Live By:

“In the new heavens and earth, we will cease our coveting.  We will not be tied to comparison, at last gazing unhindered on the one without compare…We will enjoy in full the great gain of godliness with contentment.”

Like the church sign says:

Lord, in our world marked by pursuit of wealth and material things, we are reminded that true riches are in godliness and contentment.

Lord, help us live with the perspective that values the eternal over the temporal.  May we find contentment in Your grace.

Amen.