The Most Needful Thing -- Part 2

"And you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. And you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.” Deut. 5:21

Back in November, I related a little about a mission trip I recently undertook. This month, as we begin to prepare for the ’08 trip, I’ve relived some of those memories.

The other day, for instance, while talking to my 9-year-old daughter, she commented that “we need a bigger house.” I can appreciate the desire to be more comfortable, but I’ve come to question the many things we claim to “need” of late. Visiting Nicaragua this last July has reinforced the realization that many of the things we claim to need are really wants. With this in mind, I’ve become even more aware that much of our society is built around making us break the 10th commandment: “Thou shalt not covet …”

Coveting goes deeper then just wanting what other people have, it’s focusing on what you don’t have and not being thankful for what you do have. The children of Israel got in big time trouble for coveting something they didn’t have: meat (Numbers 11) and a king, (1 Sam 8). Coveting always leads to complaining, because it harbors an ungrateful heart. Coveting and complaining are especially offensive to God, because they portray Him as something He is not. When we covet, we’re saying that God is stingy with His blessings, quick to seek out ways to punish us, hurtful in His choices, and only gives us good things grudgingly. This, of course, isn’t true. In fact, God’s treatment of His sheep is just the opposite.

Unfortunately, our entire consumer society is geared toward creating dissatisfaction with the things you have or a lust and desire for things you don’t have. If you’ve watched television commercials very long, you know this is true. The premise behind many of these commercials is how horrible your life is now and how much better if would be if you bought this product.

There’s no doubt that labor-saving devises are good; I really like not having to buy giant ice cubes to refrigerate my food, and I really like being able to get to work in a car in 15 minutes. Yes, I believe God is glorified when we use our brain to solve problems. The problem comes when we begin to seek comfort in things God doesn’t intend for us to have, when we base our worth on those things, or when we begin to imagine that God is withholding good things from us.

The problem is that Satan is so sneaky, He often has us coveting without our even knowing it. No Christian, for instance, would say God is bad, mean hearted, and vindictive. But that is what we’re saying when we complain. We accuse God without even realizing it.

The corrective for coveting, I have found, is praising God and being thankful for what He has given us. The Christian’s joy and peace, therefore, isn’t based on what we have or don’t have. I don’t pretend to know why a spouse, a parent, or a sibling should be taken from our lives. The only thing I can hold to in these instances is that God is good and has given us what we need. Our hope rests in knowing that a good God loves us and cares more about us then we even love ourselves.

This attitude is much different from the world’s positivism – just dwelling on the good things of life. Positivism may be able to help us focus on the “sunny side of life” but does little to help us accept the new reality: life without a loved one, the inability to work, the loss of something precious; it always falls down when life seems to turn against you.

The grieving Christian, however, possesses a strength that positivism can’t offer: an acknowledgment of the loss and a frame of mind that can accept the loss. I believe God has created us to recognize the magnitude of our loss and hurt in response to that loss; our sense of loss is in proportion to the degree with which we have loved.

A Christian perspective, therefore, allows for the acknowledgement of our loss and acceptance that things will never be the same. This is crucial if we’re to have any peace in life. When we covet the things, or people we lose, we block ourselves from true grieving and healing. We can never have peace with God if our coveting makes Him out to be cruel. We can never come to peace with our circumstance, if we’re coveting a lifestyle or relationship that can no longer be. Indeed, many of the people I’ve met who were mad at God were mad because they were hanging onto something or someone who’s season was past.

Christians, therefore, are freed to grieve and yet not covet, because our grief honors God by recognizing the love He gave us to share and then by trusting that He is good in all of His dealings with us … even when He removes the thing we hold most precious. And ultimately, we have all we need.

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