TOO MUCH...TOO LITTLE?

(These One a Days are added to each day)

The book of Proverbs 15:16-17 says it so well, “Better a little with fear of the Lord than great wealth with turmoil. Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred.”

A wise and ancient guru had a disciple who had come so far in wisdom and understanding that he decided to leave him on his own. His disciple lived quite simply in a tiny hut made of mud; sustained himself each morning after devotions by daily begging for bread and each evening washed his loincloth and hung it out to dry.

One morning, he went out to get his loin cloth and found that overnight rats had gnawed on it until only tattered shreds were left. He therefore begged from those around him for another loin cloth, and they gladly gave him one for this was a holy man.

But remember, he was wise as well as a holy man so he then did what common sense demanded. He got himself a cat.

But as often happens, one solution only serves up another problem. Now he needed milk for his cat. This became increasingly difficult to obtain so naturally he now acquired a cow. Ah, complications increased.

Now he needed fodder for the cow, so he decided to till and plant the ground around his hut. And soon he was so very, very busy tending cat, and cow, and crops that he had no time for contemplation.

Wisdom was soon served again. He hired servants to tend his farm and give him help in other ways. He began to wonder at some of his recent decisions but what else could he do?

Daily he was becoming more weary, for now there was so much to care for and worry about that he consulted himself in a question and answer time. What can I do? The answer that came was obvious. Obtain more wealth and let others work and worry for him. Soon he was the wealthiest man in the village.

At just about this time his guru was traveling in the region again and stopped by to see his disciple. He was overwhelmed by all the changes that had been made. The mud hut had been replaced by a well built home surrounded by so much land that the once little plot was now a vast estate. There were busy servants scurrying about. Everywhere a kind of buzz about the place.

The guru paused and then asked, “What is the meaning of all of this?”

“You won’t believe this, master,” came back the reply. “It was the only way I could keep my loincloth.”

What am I saying? Perhaps life as we know it is an Eden we have created, or is it by chance an Eden we have reworked until it is not so much an Eden any more. It isn’t that simple, but then maybe it is. Or as Thoreau once said, “We are happy in proportion to what we can learn to live without.” However, if no matter how much we have, we are never satisfied…now there is a different matter.

I can still remember as a child of the depression using my imagination to turn cardboard boxes into ships at sea. Back in the middle of November, several years ago, my wife and I sailed for five days on a luxurious ocean liner.

Was it better than the cardboard box of my youth? Certainly. Would I have preferred spending 5 days in a cardboard box rather than on a Caribbean Cruise? Hardly. But if I could never take a cruise again and not being able to ruined the rest of my remaining days, somehow I think I would be in trouble.

I guess what I am saying is that I hope that as we take that other cruise, the cruise of life and I want to continue to do so with overwhelming thanksgiving. That I constantly remember that nothing that I can buy becomes more important than what God has freely given me.

The book of Proverbs 15:16-17 says it so well, so allow me to repeat, “Better a little with fear of the Lord than great wealth with turmoil. Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred.”

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