The Material World

The Material World

The mall is a great place. A place I don’t belong. I walk into JC Penney’s and catch my breath at all the beautiful colors and styles. I see the SALE signs above the racks and somehow I expect the price tag to reflect my idea of a sale. It never works out that way. In stead, the sign says “priced as marked” and when I look at the marked prices, I get sick. I don’t know who told The Boss that $9.99 for a flimsy t-shirt was a sale, but whoever they are, they need some serious reprogramming!!

Deanna was thrilled when I gave her her money. She had been planning meticulously how to spend it for the last couple of weeks.

“Mom, can I buy some clothes here?” she asked, unsure of exactly what to do.

We had driven into El Paso because the boys needed some school project items. They had wanted to go to the mall before we went home. So, that’s where we were – standing in the mall watching thousands of people buzzing around us and trying not to get dizzy.

“We can look. You might find a few things on sale.” I tried to be positive.

We went to Dillard’s. I looked at the “Clearance” racks and she looked in the Teen section. I found nothing, but she found a cute shirt that didn’t have a derogatory sentence on it. We hung on to it while we browsed the rest of the racks. There seemed to be a lot of black and several of the shirts had skulls on them. Most things looked like something a hooker would wear and others looked like something from “Night of the Living Dead”. The longer we looked, the more uncomfortable I became.

The shirt she had picked out had not tag and she took it up to the counter. Seconds later she was back.

“I’m not paying $21.00 for a t-shirt! They’re crazy! Let’s go to Wal-Mart,” she said as we headed out of Dillard’s.

As we walked through the wide corridors, I paid a little closer attention to the stores on each side. I was also aware of all of the teens milling about. Many of the girls looked like they could be one of the models I saw in the poster plastered along one of the walls. I wish I could say that that was a compliment , but I don’t really mean it that way. I mean that the teens flowing non-stop on either side were trying to live up to the image that the advertisers were pushing on them: bare bellies, too much cleavage, low cut jeans, skin tight pants across the rear, body piercings, colored hair, heavy make-up, etc.

Suddenly, I was aware of being bombarded with the expectations of this materials oriented world. Stuff displayed everywhere and “pushers” everywhere selling their wares: treasures designed to satisfy that world. Everyone seemed to be caught up in this river of materialism and was being swept along with the current, which was driven by advertisers praying upon the flesh of their victims. Not that I’m bashing free enterprise here, but I was beginning to feel like fodder for the vultures.

Flipping open my cell phone (I guess I’m not immune), I dialed Terence’s number. “Hey, guys! We’ll meet you at the truck in 10 minutes. Are you about done?” I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

At Wal-Mart, Deanna and I didn’t have any better luck. We both decided that this was a bad day to shop for clothes and agreed to put if off for another day. The mall experience had spoiled it for both of us.

In a town without a mall or even a Wal-Mart, it had been easy to forget that we live in an extremely carnal world. So many of us (collectively) are searching for those tangible things that will make us happy or acceptable. We are inundated with Big Businesses telling us what we should look like and what needs we have that only their product will fulfill. There is so much of it that we fall into the River and get swept away; buying this and that to satisfy our flesh while tumbling to our destruction of the rocks of Disappointment and Emptiness.

As Christians, we are not immune to their wiles and deceptions. But, as Christians, we have Truth and Hope with which to combat their hypnosis. We have Christ, the Author and Finisher of our faith, the Water for our souls, the Treasure that is from Above. Thank God that I don’t have to search this world for the things that will fill my emptinesses; I have only to call upon Him and He reminds me of my place beside Him in the Upper Heavenlies with the Treasures that He has laid up for me. In comparison, the World’s temptations and materials seem so much less satisfying.

1Jo 2:15 - 17 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world--the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions--is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

May we seek His Kingdom above the World’s temptations. May we have the wisdom to know when we are being tempted.

Reflections from the Little House in the Tumbleweeds.