You may be trying to decide how
to move through this season wisely and faithfully. What do I buy?
How much should I spend? How can I resist "saving my money"
when prices are discounted 60%? Will I spend so much to "create"
the perfect family Christmas that I spend half the coming year working my way
out of a credit card hole?
Years ago Richard Foster wrote a
book titled Money, Sex and Power. In that book he offers some guidelines
worth remembering as we make decisions about spending/giving gifts in these
next few weeks. His principles helped shape the following list:
First, take a moment and look
around to see with new eyes all you already have. Develop a spirit of
thanks-giving for what you have. You may discover the anxious need to
have more will be replaced by a spirit of gladness and contentment.
Second, develop a budget.
(An annual budget is a good thing, but it certainly helps to begin the retail
side of this season with a gift budget! How much will you spend?)
Include in this Christmas budget the amount you will give away to your church,
Habitat, Doctors without Borders, Shalom, or other worthy causes.
Third, if you have to go into
debt to buy a gift, think twice. Think three times. Think again...
Fourth, understand that the best
gifts we can give others are times together. Give a gadget or create a
moment when you will eat together, play a game together, etc. Most of us
can remember only a few gifts over a lifetime, but we can remember moments with
people we loved and people who loved us. I hear Sharon talk about the
days when the kids and adults in her neighborhood would ride around town on
snow sleds pulled by a local implement dealer driving a Case tractor. Not
safe...but memories I hear more about than any gift she ever found under a
tree!
Fifth, remember the
castaways. Remember those expensive things you bought a year or two
ago. Where are they? Still used or are they broken, forgotten, or
out of style because some new thing has come along? (That new Mac Air is
pretty light and cool, after all. Last year's model is looking rather
shabby...) Think about the castaways before you go broke trying to buy
the latest thing that may become next year's castaway.
Sixth, buy things for their
usefulness and not for status or to impress.
Seventh, it seems right to think
about the Wesleyan rules for living as we consider what and how much to
buy. Do No Harm, Do Good, and Stay in Love with God. Will that new,
ultra-violent video game help you, your brother or your grandchild stay in love
with God? Will how we spend and what we spend and how we end up working
to manage our stuff allow us to Do No Harm, Do Good, and Stay in Love with God?
Jesus, in Matthew 6, says we
shouldn't store up treasure on earth where rust and moths can destroy.
Instead, we are to seek the Kingdom of God and store up treasure in heaven.
Before you allow yourself to be
sucked into the vortex of debt-generating, retail craziness, slow down.
Open your eyes. Look at your budget. And remember your life is
about more than the clothes you wear or the food you eat!
Gift giving can be pure joy, but
it is always best when we let God's gift of the Child be at the center of it
all. That gift...is enough!
In Christ and for Christ,
Mark
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