You want me to do what?  Give it all away and follow you?  I am sorry but I have to many things to do in this life, to many things to get, and so much life left to gain the whole world.  YOLO,  I don’t have time to give it away when the person with the most toys wins.. right?

When I was younger, my dad use to say that if you want something, you have to go and get it yourself.  He wasn’t going to get me anything, so that is what I did, I went out got a job and started to work my way up in each company to make a lot of money.  When I was 18 I was making more money than  I knew how to spend.  So what did I  do?  Bought things.. lots of big things.  Cars, Wave Runners, Big TV’s, computers, and big dog bones for my dog Kado.

I really had all the materials I could ever dream of at that age.  Things, Things, and more things to protect my things.  The more I got the more I wanted and this materialistic pattern began to infiltrate my life.  It was this never ending battle of trying to find something to fully satisfy me.  But God was at work and started to slowly take those things away and opened up some doors to go to some pretty eye opening places where people had only enough to stay alive.  This rocked my world and how I lived my life.  When I came back it was a hard experience of reverse culture shock pushing me to question the things that I had.  Were they really necessary?

Do I really need more things?  I was chasing after something that would never satisfy and the more I traveled down that road of materialism the deeper I felt empty.  God pressed it on my heart to start giving my money and time to people that needed it.  So I started with giving to God and his people, the church, where I new they would use it for good.  Then started to give to people in need.  This triggered something in my life that started to make sense.  Jesus Christ gave his life so that I could live and through giving there is a freedom of not holding on to things of this world but trusting in God for our every need.  The concept of realizing that things will never satisfy indwelled my thoughts and it became a lifestyle of how I view materialism.  We don’t need things to be happy, I saw this first hand in Africa where all they had was what God provided, which was enough food and water to live, and they were the most joyous people I have ever been in contact with.

Now am I saying go sell everything you have and live a homeless life?  Nope, unless God calls you to that but what I am saying, is that we need to hold on to things lightly and realize that God will provide your every need.  Try using the things that you have to bless others and watch how much you can impact their lives through those blessings!  It’s amazing to be able to show them the love of Christ by giving!

This is totally contrary to what the world tells you, being to accumulate everything for happiness.  God tells us not to hold on to the things that will come to pass but to focus on things that will last forever, people’s salvation.  Though this giving and surrendering my things, I have found a peace that surpasses all understanding and my life has been changed by God working in me.  I hope this encourages you to put aside selfishness and put on selflessness.