I fall so easily to feeling sorry for myself. These past few weeks have been so busy and I never have great reserves of strength, so I get depleted easily. If I'm not careful, depletion can lead to depression, simply because I haven't the strength to throw it off. It wasn't helped by a man who has a three times the income I have, telling me about his lovely holiday, which was at a Beach Resort, and for which he only had to pay half price.
The arrow of comparing my life with his, struck home and I felt that God must love him more than me, because I can't afford a holiday every year, certainly not one at a Resort for half price!
It is never wise to compare our lives and our losses with other people's, who seem not to have much go wrong. When I indulge in this self-destructive activity, it always brings me low.
There are certainly people of my acquaintance who seem to fall in this "comfortable" category. I often wonder why this is so, and how this equates to a Providential God.
But I don't actually want to debate if God is providential or not, in this blog.
It led me to think of other people, whose lives have been defined and cauterised by loss and suffering, and great want. People caught in the trap of Hitler's evil madness; people who lived through the Great Depression; the Irish through the famine; the servant class in England; the outcaste in India; the poor in Africa. And I realize how lucky I am.
I think there has always been the privileged and rich few, and the poor disadvantaged masses. To be fair there will also be a great multitude who are in between to varying degrees, but who basically have enough. And even though I am down the lower end of my country's income-level, Australia is one of the most affluent countries in the world, so I certainly have enough.
No matter which system governs, it will always be the same - there will always be, to varying degrees, the few rich and the many poor, because this is what money does - it divides people to classes. There will always be, in the heart of man, the desire to accumulate more and more wealth. This is an original flaw - an indelible line on man's carnal blueprint. The opposite trait is also there; the desire to help and ease the burden of the poor, but this is grafted on by God's influence. It is a tenuous, fragile vine, susceptible always to the decay of greed and self-interest. So, money and the business of getting more of it will always be the deciding factor in how the world's people live. Those who love money the most, very often end up with a great deal of it.
The only sure thing about our lives, is death. It's absolutely indisputable. But we spend our lives pretending it isn't going to happen. We hurtle, unprepared and in denial, towards our own demise. We spend our whole life's energy amassing as much wealth and status as we can but when we stand at death's threshold, a higher power will tell us we can't take our stash beyond; that it is not viable currency and that another measure will be used to weight our worth, stamp our passport and determine our destination.
So it's better to give thanks for what we have, live simply and with contentment for what we have been given by a Providential God, without comparing what we think he's given others.
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