When less is more

"And He said to them, ‘Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.’"- Luke 12:15, nkjv

How much is enough? Have you ever pondered that question in relation to your own lifestyle? When John D. Rockefeller was asked how much money it would take for him to be satisfied, he replied, "Just a little bit more!"

How much do you really need to be satisfied? Has the media convinced us that we must have far more than we actually need to be satisfied?

One of the most challenging books I have ever read is Richard Foster’s Freedom of Simplicity. In this thought-provoking confrontation with materialism, Foster begins the first chapter by saying, "Contemporary culture is plagued by the passion to possess. The unreasoned boast abounds that the good life is found in accumulation–that ‘more is better’. Indeed, we often accept this notion without question, with the result that the lust for affluence in contemporary society has become psychotic: it has completely lost touch with reality."

In the last three decades a great deal of my time has been spent in the developing world, where people have so little compared with the affluent life in the West; and I have become convinced that many people today are possessed by "things" as perhaps no other generation in history. The more complex life becomes, the more convinced we are that we actually need more to be happy. Having obtained what we think we need, we soon become unhappy again because a new model, with more bells and a whistle, comes out, making ours obsolete. We have forgotten the admonition of Jesus Christ, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."

It takes far less than we think to discover happiness when our happiness comes from within and we break the stranglehold that things have on our lives today. After Admiral Richard Byrd lived in the Antarctic all by himself for months, he wrote these words in his journal: "I am learning...that a man can live profoundly without masses of things."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn discovered the same thing. In one of his books he told about being thrown into a Soviet prison and, systematically, everything he held dear to his heart was taken from him–his books, his home, his friends, and his freedom–almost everything but his life. It was then Solzhenitsyn said that he came to realize that a man is never stronger than when he has nothing but the treasures that are within his heart.

Both Mark and Luke tell about a young man who stuggled with this issue of how much is enough, when he came to Jesus Christ one day and asked, "Good master, what must I do to inherit the kingdom of God?" Jesus immediately stripped away any misconceptions about adding "faith" as an ornament to his already opulent life as He told him, "Go, sell what you have, give to the poor, and come be My follower." Tough advice! Hardly what he expected. Jesus was against money, right? Wrong! He was against anything that becomes god in our lives and leaves our Heavenly Father on the side. How much is enough? G.K. Chesterton answered the question by saying, "There are two ways to get enough: One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less and less." Jesus reminded us, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:21). Resource reading: Luke 12

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