SUPPORTING SCRIPTURE
Psalm 103:5-6 The prayer life of a Christian can feel exhausting sometimes. Here is one of our simple prayers written to help you grow in your prayer life and connect with God, especially if you don’t feel like praying. Check it out!
I Always Want More
It’s fun to buy things… until it’s not. We hate the way marketing can make us feel like we the latest and greatest or that we’re lacking something important. We hate the way we can be wearing a perfectly good pair of shoes, see an ad for new shoes, and feel like we those shoes instead. And then when we find out how our shoes are made—by people in other countries who are basically slaves—it makes us feel even worse for buying an extra pair. Or when we hear about how corporations squeeze people to their breaking points, destroy the environment, and manipulate the masses for profit? It’s evil and unjust.
Unbridled consumerism is just gross. Period. But it’s SO Hard for us not to give in. To feed the machine that’s destroying us and the world when all of the messaging in our culture tells us we need more. And that’s why lament is so helpful. We have permission to draw attention to what’s wrong with the world, and ask God to do something about it.
“Praise the Lord…who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
The Lord works righteousness
and justice for all the oppressed” (Psalm 103:5-6).
A Lament for Consumerism
Why, God, is it so easy for me to feel unsatisfied with your good gifts of forgiveness or with your presence? Why do I feel I need more to be happy or accepted or loved? Contentment is like smoke, and satisfaction like mist that I can’t seem to grasp. It fades with the wind. Help me look to you as the giver of the good gifts I truly need. Help this sense of lacking lead me to lean on you, and away from buying one more thing made through the manipulation or suffering of the most vulnerable. Christ, my strength, help me be content. Amen.
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