“I can’t believe these words are coming out of my mouth, but I am getting tired of eating!” We had company over the Thanksgiving holiday, and I am blessed with a bride who is an excellent cook, so the turkey wasn’t the only one to get “stuffed”! I definitely ate more than my “daily bread.” Almost makes me want to sing!

“O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain. For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grace on thee. And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!” (“America the Beautiful”)

Abundance is a two-edged sword. Scripture and history show us abundance has the potential to bring about our downfall. Too many Americans forget the “God shed His grace on thee” part of the song. The German philosopher Georg Hegel famously said, “The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” Moses cautioned the children of Israel before they entered the Promised Land to be cautious of the abundance that would come.

“And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you — with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant — and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” (Deuteronomy 6:10-12, ESV)

We all know how that ended.

“And all that generation [Joshua and his generation] also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.” (Judges 2:10, ESV)

They forgot where their success and abundance came from. The result was “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25, KJV).

Should we as a nation be concerned? Absolutely. Scripture gives us a picture of abundance (or prosperity) gone wrong.

“Behold, this was the guilt (‘sin,’ KJV] of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease [‘abundance of idleness,’ KJV] but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So, I removed them, when I saw it.” (Ezekiel 16:49-50, ESV)

Sodom had the “good life”, but it did not end well for them. My grandma was fond of saying “idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” and Sodom proved that to be an accurate assessment.

Do you see the parallel in our culture today? The culture of Sodom is all around us. What is our response to be? We need to remember the goodness of the Lord! We need to have a balanced perspective. God loves to give us abundance, but not at the cost of forgetting the Source.

Agur makes this request of God: “Two things I ask of you… Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God” (Proverbs 30:7-9, ESV).

What we really need is less “stuff” and more of the Giver of Life.

What say ye, Man of Valor?
Semper Fidelis!