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By Mark

     Since selling what we own and moving to Mongolia I am still trying to learn a very important lesson.  The lesson is this: my joy, happiness and contentment are not grounded in my material things.  If you asked me before, I certainly would have said that happiness doesn’t come from what we own. I knew then and know now that it is a lie.  However, the fly fishing catalogs, Internet searches for the perfect “gear”  and lust after tools (particularly hand tools, i.e.  the perfect smoothing plane) would have told you another story.  Standing in the midst of Bloom’s taxonomy I knew but I still am working on ascending to understanding and application.  I am learning from Mongolians that happiness is not connected to material things.  However, I am also seeing the influx of Louis Vuitton and Burberry stores and watching a society starting to question whether that is true, right before my eyes. 

      This lesson hit me again today as I looked at two different articles.  The first is from the Motley Fool about people who are multi-millionaires who got into trouble by trying to make even more.  When John D. Rockefeller was asked “How much money is enough?” the reply was, “Just a little bit more.”  It’s a good article and rare for financial reporting to actually think about motives, although ethical investing will become a major part of business plans in the coming decade. 

The Question: HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

    So if those with more money than you could comprehend are not satisfied, where is satisfaction and true contentment to be found?  Enter Jeremiah Burroughs.   The second article comes from a book by him.  This summer I purchased the book The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment.  It is still on the shelf but it will be read – quite worthy of reading. (I am guilty here, too, of mistaking owning a book with actually profiting from its contents.  To paraphrase John Piper- Books do not change us.  It is the sentences and phrases within the book that change us.  It is not a book that is referenced much.  Most old books by dead guys are not. 

The Answer:  What you are truly longing for

Read both, they are worthy to be read.  But perhaps pause and consider what it is that you truly crave.