Seek The Greater Gain

1Tim 6:6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.

7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.

8 And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.

Is it just me or do others seem to find that whenever you go to the refrigerator what you want is always in the back and you have to empty half the shelf to get to it?

As that happened this morning and I groused about it the thought came to me on how blessed I am to have to this problem. Multitudes of people around the world do not have a refrigerator and if they do it is rarely filled and often empty. Others have empty shelves or no shelves at all. Pity me that everything is not always within easy access.

The only time I was fashion conscious or into fads was when I was a young hippie where we wanted to express our unique personalities by dressing the same way. After that, I spent many years not having to decide what to wear as depending on my job it was fatigues/BDUs or Class A/B. It was hard not to match my shirt and pants and black shoes/boots go with everything.

I still would rather have a certain amount of black pants/jeans and white/red shirts. Just enough to get me to Saturday wash day. I do not need a closet full of clothes and a floor and hangers full of shoes. Some people may think I am poor because they see me in the same outfits all the time. My wife fusses that the shirt or pants I choose are often the ones she just washed.

Clothes keep me warm in the winter and out of jail in the summer and that is all they mean to me. I do like western wear and when I can get stuff on sale, I will opt for that over other styles, but I do not pay $60 for a shirt and $50 for a pair of pants. I do not mind thrift store clothes as once in college I could not find a pair of pants in my size in any department store. I found a pair in a thrift store for $2 and they fit like they were made for me.

As I gaze around my house and look at the plethora of things I have amassed throughout the years I realize that I cannot take it with me and most likely much of it will end up at a local thrift store that supports a pregnancy center or in the trash as no one in my family has the same tastes as my wife and I. I wish I had figured that out sooner. There would be more money in the bank and less clutter.

Food for thought. If you are paying storage fees sooner or later the fees will be more than what the stuff you are storing is worth even if they are antiques.

If we would pursue godliness as much as we pursue stuff, we would not only be firebrands of holiness setting the world on fire for Christ, but we would be far more content.

The American dream is really a nightmare. People die early from stress from working too many hours to get stuff they really do not need. He who dies with the most toys does not win. His/her heirs and the IRS wins.

The system has hooked us on buying stuff that does not last or buying continuous upgrades of equipment. I keep a PC until it is toast and my last two cars had 170K and 249K miles on them before I traded. People would ask at work about software upgrades. I asked what was in the upgrade that they needed Blank stares. They wanted it because it was new.

Your car with 50K miles will most likely last for 100K or more. Yes, the new one is shiny and smells good, but the odor of the payments is not near as sweet smelling. Pay yours off and run it into the ground. And like my philosophy about clothes, a car gets you from point A to B and back again. Anything about that is an overpriced luxury. They do not make anything like they used to and a more expensive car may not give you any better service in the long haul as repairs may be twice as much. Jist sayin'.

Notice the verse does not even mention shelter. You need a solid house that will keep out the elements. Anything above that is also expensive luxury. Every real estate agent I have dealt with always told me based on my income I could have a bigger house. Bigger house means bigger insurance and taxes besides the higher mortgage. We opted to live in a house rather than live for a house. If one of us were to get ill or lose our jobs we were in a better position to not lose our house than most of our peers. That meant less stress for us.