What Are You Seeking?

A few years back, Emily and I went to see Little Women in theater. She liked the 90s version and grew up reading the book. Me, I’d never seen or read the story before. The title didn’t exactly grab me, but I was ready to give it a shot. It could okay.

I was spellbound.

I laughed.

I cried.

I read the book.

The book’s charming. It’s also a shameless attempt to instruct you in 19^th century morality. Little lessons abound. Marmie’s always ready to sit one of the girls (and the reader) on her knee and deliver a tiny sermon.

Many of these sermons have to do wealth. The oldest of the four daughters, Meg, is the family beauty and has a fondness for fine clothes. She ends up (do you have to include spoiler alerts for novels from 1868?) marrying for love rather than money and embarks on a humble life with her poor tutor husband, while many of her friends live in high society.

It’s a struggle:

Poor Meg seldom complained, but a sense of injustice made her feel bitter toward everyone sometimes, for she had not yet learned to know how rich she was in the blessings which alone can make life happy.

Alcott’s lesson for Meg and us is, You don’t need money to be rich in those blessings that can actually make life happy.

I think that idea is something that most of us would immediately and enthusiastically pay lip service to. But it’s also something that many of us absolutely do not put into practice. We can’t get beyond lip service, because we like the things that money can buy too much.

Sometimes, I recognize that in myself and lay down new ground rules to curb my own buying and amassing more stuff. But eventually rules are bent and forgotten, and old habits always start creeping back in.

I was thinking about that recently when I read Colossians 3:

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (3:1-3)

When you’re daydreaming about that Add to Cart button, it’s pretty jarring to hear “seek the things that are above… set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth.”

Those of us who wrestle with that never-ending hunger for more stuff have two good reasons to make a change (or recommit to change) today.

1. Little Women’s right: a happy life doesn’t require enough in the bank to indulge your every whim. Happiness flows from other blessings, which money can’t buy.
2. One of the ways that Jesus wants to make us new is by recalibrating our desires, so that, more and more, our focus is on the things of God instead of earthly achievements, experiences, and possessions.

So, where have you been looking for happiness? 

What have you been setting your mind on? 

How might God be challenging you when it comes to money and belongings?