A Prayer about Our Stuff
Do not toil to acquire wealth;
be discerning enough to desist.
When your eyes light on it, it is gone,
for suddenly it sprouts wings,
flying like an eagle toward heaven. (Prov. 23:4–5)
Loving Father, this has been a crazy and stressful season in our economy. Some of us who thought we’d be retired in a couple of years are now thinking it’s ten, if at all. Some of us have lost jobs, even homes. Some of us are selling stuff, having stuff repossessed, having to move; some of our marriages are being stressed to the point of ending; and some of us are being tempted to steal for the first time. Others of us are holding tighter to our stuff than ever and are exerting great energy just to get more. Lord, we need wisdom for ourselves and for our friends.
Father, though the issues vary and we dare not generalize, bring the perspective of the gospel to bear as we think about our relationship to “stuff.” Where have we assumed the right to excess? Why did we think only first century disciples of Jesus would ever actually have to pray for daily bread? Where have we gotten used to a lifestyle of having so much stuff to the point that we actually call abundance “need”?
In our “i World” of new gadgets and cool widgets, help us to ponder the reality that over half of the population on the earth exists on three of our American dollars, or less, a day. Father, help us only to glance at riches rather than setting our gaze on them. Give us restraint, Lord Jesus. Holy Spirit, if we would wear ourselves out for anything, let it be to become rich toward God (Luke 12:20–21)— to have the gospel so penetrate our hearts that we cry out with spontaneous joy, “Who do I have in heaven but you, O Lord, and being with you I desire nothing on the earth . . . You are my portion, sovereign Lord.”
Lord Jesus, you who were outrageously rich in all things became incomprehensibly poor for us, so that we, who were desperately poor in sin, might be made immeasurably rich in grace. I pray in your most enriching and liberating name.
Amen.