Stuff Addiction

The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me. Leviticus 25:23

My wife and I are currently neck-deep in the process of building a house. In this process, we’ve often asked ourselves this question – How much is too much? What we’re asking is that, as Christians, how do we know if we’re being too greedy? We don’t need a new house. We’re currently living in a remodeled old garage and we’re quite content. There’s no room for the kids in our garage, so we’d like a bigger space, but honestly, we could survive in the garage if we had to.

Through this process, I’ve prayed the same prayer every day – God, may your will be done with the house. I pray that it would be a tool that we will use for you and your will. I pray that it wouldn’t become an idol to us. I want to hold it loosely and if you want us to sell it when we’re done building, I desire to be obedient. I do think that God allows us to enjoy our blessings, but I also know how easy it is to attempt to find gratification in the unhealthy. Just as I once sought satisfaction in my pills, I could easily try to find meaning in my stuff. In my addiction, the pills became my god, controlling me. I know that just as easily, my stuff could become my god, ruling my life. I don’t want to go back to the old life of addiction, so, I daily pray that I would hold my stuff loosely.

Today’s passage helps me with this. In it, God instructed his people to celebrate the Year of Jubilee. Every 50 years, they were to return all land back to whomever they’d originally bought it from. In essence, most people would be renting land, knowing they had to give it back eventually. This was a reminder to God’s people that they didn’t own the land. God owned it all and they were simply being allowed to use it for a time.

That helps me to hold my things more loosely. If I believe that I deserve a thing and that it’s mine, then I’m far more attached to it and it begins to control me. If, however, I understand that God owns all and that he’s simply blessed me with the privilege of using a thing for a while, then I can maintain a proper perspective on my life and my stuff. All stuff is God’s stuff. My life is about allowing God, not my stuff, to direct my decisions. I don’t want the stuff I own to own me. So, daily, I’ll keep praying that I hold my stuff loosely – even the new house.