The Want You Never Let Yourself Finish

He had his hand on it for about eleven seconds, which is a long time to hold a thing in a shop.

It was not extravagant. It was the kind of item a person buys without a second thought, and it would have made a small ordinary job in his week easier, and he had actually thought about it three separate times that month, which for him is close to obsession.

He put it back on the shelf and walked out.

Not because of the number on it. That is the part worth catching, and it is the reason this is not a piece about a balance. He could have taken it home without anything else in his life moving. There was nothing to work out.

Something in him simply would not let the sentence finish. I want got about halfway across and then folded, the way a man stops himself mid-yawn in a meeting.

He is like this about most things now. His daughter asked him in the car what he actually wanted for Christmas, and he said, nothing, honestly, I'm fine, and she said Dad you say that every year, and he laughed, and the conversation moved on to something else, and it stayed with him all the way home.

There is a note on his phone from four years ago with three things on it. He has never opened it since the day he made it. He knows it is there.

And in church he is fine. He is generous, he is steady, he does not envy anybody. If you asked around, people would tell you he is one of the least grasping men they know, and they would be right, and that is exactly the trouble, because the thing living in him is wearing that reputation like a coat.

It is not contentment. He knows the difference, somewhere below the ribs. Contentment is restful and this is not restful. Contentment does not flinch, and this flinches.

It is guilt, dressed up as humility, and it has been running his hands for years.

Now the shelf is yours, so put your hand on it a second longer than he did.

Some of this is about money and most of it is not, and it is worth saying plainly before we go anywhere. If your money is short, this same wall stands in your kitchen too, and you meet it from the other side: the wanting shuts down early because wanting hurts when the answer is no. If your money is not short, the wanting shuts down early because it feels greedy. Same wall. Different side of it. Nobody reading this is further along than anybody else reading this, and nothing on this page will name a number, promise you more, or suggest that what is in your account has ever been a report on how you are doing with God.

The question underneath is not financial at all.

It is whether the God you belong to actually gives things, and whether He minds if you enjoy them.

Guilt in a humility coat

Start here, because the two get confused constantly and only one of them is from God.

Humility is an accurate view of yourself in the light of who God is. It is restful. It frees you to receive, because a humble man knows perfectly well he did not earn most of what he has and is not embarrassed about it. Humility says thank you easily.

Guilt of this kind says something quite different. It says: people have less than you, so wanting is greedy, so want less, and then less again, and if you can get down to wanting nothing at all you will finally be safe from the accusation. It never arrives. There is no floor to it. A man can give away everything he owns and this thing will still find something to convict him of, because it was never actually about the possessions.

The tell is what it does to gratitude. Real humility makes a man thankful. This makes a man flinch. Nobody flinches their way into thankfulness.

You are not one degree holier for wanting nothing. Scripture never once praises a man for refusing what his Father handed him, and it says instead that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, James 1:17, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a man believe that about the small ordinary thing in his hand.

Here is the verse this whole piece stands on, and notice how far it is from where our instincts go.

Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.1 Timothy 6:17

Paul is writing to comfortable people and he does give them a warning, and the warning is about trust, not about enjoyment. Do not build your footing on something that can move. That is the danger, and it is a real one.

And then, having said it, he does not tell them to want less. He tells them who God is. Who giveth us richly all things to enjoy. Giveth. Richly. To enjoy. Three words your instincts have probably been quietly editing out of that sentence for years.

You have a Father whose settled character is giving, and He attached enjoyment to it Himself. 1 Timothy 6:17 says God giveth us richly all things to enjoy, and the purpose clause is to enjoy rather than to manage carefully, and it is the Holy Spirit and not this paragraph who lets that land on a man standing in a shop.

Nothing here reports on your faith

This next part needs saying without a single soft edge on it, because a great deal of harm has been done in this area by people using God's name.

What is in your account tonight says nothing about your standing with God. Nothing. It is not a score, it is not a signal, it is not a measure of favor and it is not a measure of failure. A man with a short balance is not being disciplined and a man with a comfortable one has not been approved. Job was stripped and Job was righteous. Paul knew how to be full and how to be hungry and told us plainly that he had learned both. The whole New Testament refuses the equation, and any teaching that makes your provision a readout on your faith is doing something the apostles never did.

You were never issued a life where your worth tracks a number. Scripture says God is no respecter of persons, and it says the Lord looketh on the heart while man looketh on the outward appearance, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a man from reading his own life as a verdict.

That cuts the guilt at the root, because the guilt has been running on a hidden equation: if I have this, someone is being cheated, and if I want it, I am the kind of man who cheats. God's economy does not work like that and never has. He is not a fixed dish where your portion is somebody else's loss. He is a Father, and fathers give to more than one child without dividing themselves.

You are not required to hold your own life at arm's length. His word says the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof, which makes Him the owner of everything you have and are ever handed, and the Spirit of God is not asking you to prove your love for Him by refusing what He passed across the table.