Luke 12:20 NLT

But God said to him, “You fool! You will die this very night. Then who will get everything you worked for?’’

In the Western world there is an overemphasis on celebrity and wealth, making it easy to feel as if one lives in the shadows cast by everyone else’s success. Learning gratitude in what appear to be poor circumstances can prove difficult. Many business books and blogs frame success by the ability to build a successful business before concentrating on ‘giving back’ in some way.

The missionary Thomas Kelly in his A Testament of Devotion (Bravo) employs a phrase I cannot escape from when he writes “Totalitarian are the claims of Christ”. For me it highlights my inner struggle, one many I speak with share, resolving the pull to what the world presents as success and my own inner seeking after God. There is a very real tension, one that can lead to confusion and double-mindedness (James 1:8). The consequences can prove disabling, as I struggle between pursuing worldly achievement or spiritual contentment.

We are all invited to explore the meaning of those totalitarian claims for ourselves. Where we reduce our understanding of God to a general acceptance of biblical truth and chase down material well-being as an end in itself, we run the risk of establishing barns ready and waiting for a harvest we shall never gather. However, if we focus entirely upon the pursuit of God, we may be left feeling we fail to measure up to our earthly and material potential.

We can choose to foster an attitude of gratitude for what we have, however meagre it appears in comparison with others. Worth remembering as one of my mentors explained it, “We will only find despair through the curse of comparison.” Learning to be grateful for who I am and how I am in life is a godly discipline.

QUESTION: How much do you compare your life with others you know or see?

PRAYER: Lord, teach me the secret of being content whether in need or in plenty.