Going to Tanzania, I didn’t bring much stuff. I didn’t bring my laptop, cell phone, camera. Rather than missing those things, I found myself feeling more content and less stressed out.
Most days I carried nothing in my hands. Possessions weigh me down and get in the way of relationship-building. When my hands had been emptied of stuff, they were free to hold more hands.
American culture says that money buys happiness. But these kids have no money, and they are content.
“Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice. It is better to be of a lowly spirit with the poor than to divide the spoil with the proud” (Proverbs 16:8,19).
“As servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: . . . as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything” (2 Corinthians 6:4,10).
Can I gain the discipline to put away “stuff” and focus on my relationships with people and with God even when I have access to an abundance of material goods?
