“We didn’t have much, but we were so happy!

So there I was today, speaking with my mother-in-law on the phone (I love her so much). We got to talking about Christmas and I asked her if she remembered her Christmases as a child. Were they good memories? Did she play the Santa games? Mom lit up and said, “Child! Oh yes! I had the best Christmases as a little girl! I was so happy and so excited! Yes, we did play the Santa games, and I even remember being told by the grown ups that when we went to bed that we better not peek ’cause Santa would know and he would spit tobacco in our eyes if we did. Child, I remember squeezing my eyes even tighter ’cause I didn’t want that. We had oranges, hard ribbon candy, and nuts, and we loved it. We didn’t have much, but we were so happy. (Sighing) Christmas just ain’t the same ’cause I reckon folks have too much stuff.” That hit me right in the feels.

Mom is so right. Over the years, we’ve incrementally traded the true meaning of Christmas for materialism. Today, from Black Friday to after-Christmas-sales, abundance is about and indulgence is the norm. We wrestle, fight, and compete with others over the latest gadgets and the best deals. We spend our energies and resources in pursuit of superficial, insignificant things. Searching to fill a void, we accumulate physical things, but our hearts remain irritated and unfulfilled. We’ve gotten off -track.

Honestly, Americans, especially Christian Americans, are drunk on a perverted understanding of freedom, so we abuse our god-given abundance. Compound that with, life for Americans, to an enormous degree, is so easy that many have to manufacture problems and crises. Consequently, because of this abundance and our indulgence, we become enslaved, leaving us more empty and unhappy than before.

Honestly, we have so much that we can’t possibly, genuinely appreciate it all. Therefore, depreciation is the order of the day. Think about it. Things like searching for information used to require hard work… libraries, newspapers and periodicals, books, even microfiche. Remember having to wait for the radio to play your favorite song? But now, because of the ease and abundance of the internet (and smart phones) that same information and those songs are right at our fingertips, just a couple of clicks away. No more waiting or working for it. “Feed me, Seymore! Feed me now!”

As such, we’re so inundated with abundance, ease, information, and pleasure that our souls are saturated, just not in a satisfying way. We’re gorged! As a result we don’t have room for God. Proverbs 27:7 reads, “When you’ve stuffed yourself, you refuse dessert; but when you’re starved, you could eat a horse.” (The Message. See also Pro 25:16; Mt 22:36-39; Gal 5:16-23)

We’ve become saturated with indulgence and weary of pleasure. Consider the below article. (I love this read!)
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Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death” (Foreword)
We were keeping our eye on “1984.” When the year came and the prophecy didn’t, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares. But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another — slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing.

• Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
• Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.
• What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.
• Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.
• Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.

As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.
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I’ll close with this. I personally learned a principle which I call “Appreciation through Deprivation.” While serving in the Gulf during Desert Storm on the forward lines, Pepsi 6-packs were rare, but ice was rarer. Whenever we did get some Pepsi, the coldest we could make it (without ice) was to bury the 6-pack in the sand, and in the shade. It was slightly below room temperature, but we tolerated it.

However, when the Gulf War was over and we were in retrograde, closer to the port now, ice was available. I vividly remember submerging my first 6-pack of Pepsi in ice – in over six months – and waiting. Dude, I can still recall the sound of popping that can open and gulping that ice-cold Pepsi! The degree to which I appreciated it was the degree to which I was deprived. And honestly, to this day, practically every time I pop a can, a part of me remembers and appreciates.

I think we would do well to subject ourselves to periods of deprivation… fasting. It will foster appreciation. With America’s abundance and freedom, it’s too easy for us to wander from dependence upon God. The words of that great hymnal Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing describes our proclivity to stray from God. My admission and confession this season is, “Lord, I am prone to wander. I just want Christ! Bind me to You!”

(Verse 1)
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace
Streams of mercy, never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise
Jesus sought me when a stranger
Wand’ring from the face of God
He, to save my soul from danger
Interposed His precious blood

(Verse 2)
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be
Let that grace, Lord, like a fetter
Bind my wand’ring heart to Thee
Teach me, Lord, some rapturous measure
Meet for me Thy grace to prove
While I sing the countless treasure
Of my God’s unchanging love

(Verse 3)
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Take my heart, oh, take and seal it
With Thy Spirit from above
Rescued thus from sin and danger
Purchased by the Savior’s blood
May I walk on earth a stranger
As a son and heir of God