God, I’m shrinking!

 

Text Box: The UK’s economy is shrinking What does that mean? For most of us, it means credit has become harder to get, and so we have less to spend because we rely on credit cards to fund our ‘retail therapy’. For many of us it means higher mortage payments; in some cases it may even mean we lose our homes because we can’t afford the higher payments. If we’re lucky enough to have a second home, we may find we can’t afford to hang on to it; selling it may be the only option. More houses on the market may be good news for people who can afford to buy; they’ll have more choice and they’ll get better value for money. More houses on the market may also mean average prices falling and people becoming worse off, on paper at least. Two decades of being boring! The UK has been obsessed with property and what it can gain from it for almost two decades; when we meet strangers we talk about our houses and our mortgages! When we meet friends, most of us moan about the things we cannot have, or boast about our latest holidays. We have become very boring (we’re so boring we need to get very drunk before we forget how boring we are).
Text Box: How did we get here? In a way it’s not surprising, because we have such narrow interests. Our jobs consume our lives in a way that would have been inconceivable only twenty years ago. We have become entirely obsessed with making and spending money – and we complain that our lives are miserable, when we have chosen this fate for ourselves. We blame ‘modern living’ for our poverty of life; but we should blame our own choices. Choices Jesus told us very clearly “You cannot serve God and money” – why? He said “You will hate one and love the other”. When we love money, we hate God; when we love God, we will hate money. Our wealth keeps us away from God, and it’s often only in times when money looks as though it might be faltering that we turn to God for help. If we can’t combine our obsession with money with a love for God, we need to make a choice between them. This does not mean that Christians have to be poor – we all need money, but we don’t need to be in love with it!