J is for the Joneses

Your brother bought a BMW. Do you want one?

Your sister is moving into a 4,000-square-foot house. With a housekeeper and nanny. Jealous?

Your neighbor buys a new laptop, tablet, and smart phone every time a new one comes out. Your laptop is old and slow, and your phone–kind of dumb.

That guy from the corner office takes his family on vacation to a new destination every year. He’s too good for Caribbean cruises or Hawaii. He’s all about the chateau in the south of France. Thinking of stowing away in his luggage?

The gal at the gym is renovating her kitchen and putting in cherry cabinets, granite counters, and those refrigerator drawers. We could get serious envy here.

Man, those Joneses are hard to keep up with! A family could work from dawn to dusk and still be way behind in the wealth display department.

“Ah,” you say. “I don’t get jealous over stuff like that.”

Well, that’s great. I don’t either. Usually. Much. But sometimes the green-eyed monster of Jealousy creeps in and grabs a hold. When it does, it helps to remember how extremely wealthy I am compared to most folks in the world. It also helps to remember how fleeting life is.

“Our days on earth are like grass; like wildflowers, we bloom and die,” says Psalm 103:15 (NLT).

Rather than be depressed about our lack of wealth or the shortness of life, let’s focus on the beauty God has created in our lives. He doesn’t love the rich gal more than the poor gal. He doesn’t set us here to see how we compete for the limited resources there are, but to see how our hearts turn toward Him.

Rather than focusing on keeping up with the Joneses, let’s be thankful to God for what we have. Isn’t that an appropriate thought for Canadian Thanksgiving?