When I was younger I loved magic. There was a man down the street from my house who taught me all kinds of card tricks, gave me tips on which different illusions to buy, and how to set up a magic show. He was great! Dreams began to form in my sleep of David Copperfield, Harry Blackstone, Houdini, and Tommy the Great! By the way, Tommy the Great was me! I was going to be the next great magician. Really. This dream began to consume every part of my life. Whether in English, World History, Economics, or Algebra, I would constantly think about magic. Can you say addiction? I might not have been able to pass Algebra, but I could pull out the best looking rabbit out of a hat and make a dove disappear. I thought that was a pretty good substitution for Algebra.
I frequently visited the Columbia Magic Shop, which was a small storefront in a not so great part of town. My parents would take me there on Saturday mornings and let me look through their huge selection of magic tricks. Usually, I already knew what I was looking for so I would just go and buy it. I was so excited to get the new trick……..until I got the new trick. You see, once I understood the secret of the trick, the trick was really a letdown. Like most things, once we own it, it doesn’t live up to our expectations of satisfaction. This caused me to want more and more and more. But regardless of the number of tricks I owned, it was never enough. It was slowly becoming an addiction. And like most addictions, it could only be fed by more and more.
Does this sound familiar to you? You might not have an addiction to magic tricks, but perhaps you have an addiction to other other things. If you do, here are a few thoughts that might help.
- An addiction to more is ultimately a result of discontentment and a misunderstanding. of the difference between needs and wants.
- Discontentment is always rooted in selfishness.
- It seems like we always want what we don’t have. This is part of the “addiction of more.”
- Discontentmentis fertilized through saturation.
- The thousands of images of those things we lack attach themselves to our emotions and desires. Once attached, fertilizing begins, discontentment grows, and the want slowly morphs into a need.
- Discontentmentis destroyed through stopping.
- Starve the desire for more. It isn’t easy, but the more often you say no to wants, the more often you will win the battle.
- Contentmentis rooted in sufficiency.
- God is sufficient in all areas of our lives. We probably have a theology that God is sufficient, but we just fail to live it. Our sufficiency is not in stuff, but in God.
- Contentmentis fertilized through Scripture.
- The more Scripture we consume, the less selfishness we will display. Galatians 5:23 mentions “self-control” as a fruit of the Spirit. Pray that God would incorporate this as a value in your life. This will certainly encourage contentment.
- Contentmentis destroyed through selfishness.
- Selfishness is the root of discontentment and destroys contentment. Wanting more of the unnecessary only breeds an addiction to more and more.
Usually, our wants outweigh our needs. This means that we usually want way more than we need. An honest appraisal of our lives will return a clear and desperate picture of Americans wanting things they don’t need or have only to satisfy an emotionally driven need. Instead, we should rely on God’s sufficiency in all areas of our lives.