Bed Snatching & Contentment

Do not be a man who strikes hands in pledge
Or puts up security for debts;
If you lack the means to pay,
Your very bed will be snatched from under you. Proverbs 22:26-27

This doesn’t appear to be referring to just any contract or agreement, but to those in which someone places their house up for collateral. If hard times come, and you are unable to meet the payments, you lose your bed right out from under you and become homeless. This is proving true across our nation right now, Father. I wish I could have shared this simple concept with the growing mass of people who have lost their homes this past year. Some are in their predicament due to rising unemployment, for which no one can plan. But many others are losing their beds from under them because they did not have the means to pay even when they made their pledge to pay for it. I would think a man would not “strike his hand in a pledge” (sign a contract) or “put up security for debts” (put up his home as collateral) unless his desire for something was so great that it was perceived as a “need” that he cannot go without.

God, make me acutely aware of my ambition to possess things. To possess stuff. Help me to see through the false lies my heart sometimes speaks regarding what I “need” or even “want,” if I do not have the means to sustain the cost.

I believe herein lies an additional layer of “me” which I desperately need you to help me remove, Father. It is the western belief that if I do not have certain luxuries, I am poor, and to be poor is an epidemic with which I cannot live. And so, in the flight to not be poor or “without,” I make deals, pledges, or contracts with creditors. I place my bed on the line for the niceties of cell phones, Internet, or another cool pair of jeans to hang in my closet 5 days out of the week.

Father, thank you that I am not currently in debt. Thank you for saving me from the cultural trappings of living on plastic and believing in this twisted equation of buy now, pay later. But work on my heart’s expectations. I have no debt. And yet I have so much stuff. Free me from the love of stuff, and overwhelm me with a love for people. Convince me that my stuff is worthless. Mud pies, as C.S. Lewis would say. The clothes and electronic gadgets and furniture and carpet and running water and air conditioning and car. They are all luxuries. If you took them, would I still think that you are God enough? Or would I sadly cling to my lost stuff?

Father, please be my all.