Well, we're in Day 3 of this 7 thing. It's been good.... and I've come to a few conclusions about myself. For one, I'm realizing that I have spent so little time in my life having to die to myself. I've experienced pain and loss at times, but very little choosing to die to myself and put my comforts away. I work pretty hard to keep myself comfortable and I rarely focus on self-discipline in areas where there aren't lots of people watching. I mean.. sure, it's relatively easy to keep up an appearance, but I deny myself very little in private. At Christmastime when our families are supposed to be making lists of what we need or want, I have a dang hard time coming up with anything. The fact is, if I want it, I've probably already indulged in it because that's what I do. I justify myself by buying things cheaply, getting them on sale, comparing my spending to others', etc. But the issue actually has very little to do with what I'm buying, how I'm consuming, how comfortable our family is. It's about the state of my heart.
It's not that the things I've indulged in are necessarily wrong... it's really not that at all. But I'm beginning to see this part of me that expects to be appeased and pampered, as if I somehow deserve to be able to walk into Target for diapers and decide I'm going to buy a third pair of summer sandals just because I can. It's not that buying the sandals has to be wrong. But there's this feeling I've noticed in the past few years... this process I go through to justify this desire for more and more and better and better "stuff". I have this attitude of entitlement and "since we can afford it, we must somehow deserve it". I'm slowly starting to see this for what it is: greed. And it's pretty ugly.
One of my many prayers this month is (and I stole this from the girl who wrote the book that gave us the idea to do this 7 thing) for God to work in my life in such a way that there might be less of me and my junk, and more of Him.
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