Getting Your "Wanter" Unstuck....Being Content

Several days ago I wrote about having a stuck “wanter” meaning that sometimes our need to acquire things can get a little off kilter.

In order to keep our “wanter” in check we must learn how to be content. We must learn how to admire without always having to acquire.

That can be difficult.

Most of our wants originate when we measure ourselves against the folks around us. I think it’s natural to compare ourselves to others. We often find someone we would like to pattern ourselves after, however, what we don’t usually realize is we are often going against God’s plan for our lives. 2 Corinthians 10:12 states….we dare not classify or compare ourselves…it is not wise.

How do you react when a friend acquires something new? Do you secretly harbor ill feelings? Does jealousy rear its ugly head? Are you suddenly tempted to obtain the same thing even if it would cause a problem like living outside of your means, increasing your debt, forgetting financial goals, etc.

1 Timothy 6:9 explains…When we long to be rich we are prey to temptation. We get trapped into all sorts of foolish and dangerous ambitions which eventually plunge us into ruin.

The ruin comes from the fact that we become possessed by our possessions.

Our weath is not our self-worth. We should rejoice in what we do have. Ecclesiastes 5:19 tells us…We need to rejoice in what we do have. If God gives a man wealth and property, he should be grateful and enjoy what he has…it is a gift from God.

We don’t only need to learn how to keep our “wanter” from getting stuck…..we also need to push the “giver” button a little more as well. We need to release what we have to help others. 1 Timothy 6: 17-19 advises….Tell those who are rich not to be proud and not to trust in their money which will soon be gone. Tell them to use their money to do good…to give happily to those in need, always with others whatever God has given them.

By doing this they will be storing up real treasure for themselves in heave…it is the only safe investment for eternity!

There are several reasons to give. If you live in America you are richly blessed compared to other nations even if you are in the lowest levels of society. I try to look at giving as my security in God….fixing my eyes on things that are unseen. 2 Corinthians 4:18 states…what can be seen lasts only for a time, but what cannot be seen lasts forever.

Finally, getting that “wanter” unstuck….being content….it isn’t easy. It’s hard work. It involves constantly evaluating how you are giving and your motives being the wants you want.

Philippians 4:12 states…I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

The keyword within the above verse is the word “learn”.

Learning is the key….and unfortunately learning is never easy, but then again….nothing worthwhile ever is.

Is Your "Wanter" Stuck?

By Friday evening I was worn down…..Dear Daughter had had a bad case of the “wants” all afternoon. She wanted to talk to me which in and of itself isn’t a bad thing, but conversation isn’t all she wanted. She wanted a snack, she wanted to be taken out to eat, she wanted a replacement pet for our dear kitty that has gone missing, she wants her room painted, and she wants to decorate it in black and white (always wanted a black and white room).

Then she wanted to drive My car over to a friend’s house – seems the friend had wrecked her car and Dear Daughter wanted to see it. No, she didn’t get to go. Then she wanted another friend to come over and spend the night. I said yes. Then she wanted to go out to eat for dinner. I said no. Then there were the reminders about her class ring needing to be paid for, and I had forgotten to order her letter jacket (for golf) once again.

After dinner she wanted to drive MY car to get some cookies. We (by this time Dear Husband was home) said no.

She argued. I blasted her. I had had it with the “Can I?”, “I want”, “Get me”, “Can you”, “Let me” direction of every single thing out her mouth since 3:30 that afternoon. I went through the long laundry list with her of everything she had wanted since she arrived home from school.

I ended my listing by telling her, “Sweetie, I think your “wanter” is stuck.”

Don’t we all do that, though? Think about all the things or situations you want right now. I bet we could fill up a page or two with all the things we want from the insignificant (removing a hangnail) to the very significant (world peace)…..from the small (a bracelet at the local department store) to the very large (a new car, a cruise, or a new home).

Yes, from time to time my “wanter” gets stuck. I get into an acquiring mode where I hunt and gather little treasures as I shop. My closest friends joke about my very large collection of jewelry, and I do seem to have a bunch of stuff. I eye my friends and their stuff, and from time to time I see something I covet and simply must acquire for myself.

Covet….now there’s a Bible term for you. Exodus 20:17 tells us in the big 10….You shall not covet…anything that belongs to your neighbor. Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t covet a friend’s possessions to the point that I might slip a lace napkin or silver creamer into my purse and walk away with it, but I do usually try to find where they got the item and attempt to purchase my own.

But is this a good habit to get into? Is the hunting and gathering of “stuff” a good thing?????

To covet means you have an uncontrolled desire to acquire. Notice I bolded “uncontrolled”……this is where the word covet takes a very negative turn and it’s the negative part of wanting something that the covet commandment addresses, and like all of God’s commandments there are very valid reasons why we need to keep our “wanter” from getting stuck.

Always wanting more causes fatigue. Proverbs 23:4 advises…Do not wear yourself out to be rich; have the wisdom to show restraint. This verse isn’t telling us that wealth is wrong….it’s telling us there is a smart way to riches and a not so smart way.

Always wanting more causes debt. For some reason our “wanters” get stuck and our wants exceed our needs and that leads to greed with a capital “G”. Ecclesiastes 5:11 states the truth…..The more money you have, the more money you spend…..

Always wanting more causes worry. This effect of a broken “wanter” would naturally follow debt, wouldn’t it? Greed leads to exceeding our needs and we can become overextended and exceed our finances as well.

Always wanting more can lead to conflict. What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the desires that battle with you? …..so says James (4:1). Hmmmm….one of the leading causes of divorce involves money, doesn’t it?

Always wanting more can lead to dissatisfaction. You will never be satisified if you long to be rich. You will never get all you want….Ecclesiastes 5:10

No, I don’t take all the verses I’ve referred to here as a condemnation of being rich. These verses do not mean I should throw out everything I own, down-size my residence, or become complacent with a minimum wage occupation.

Hardly…..

These verses refer to riches as in the over-acquiring of stuff and financial means. There is a fine line regarding being successful or having all you want, and you can cross that line very easily.

That is when our “wanter” gets stuck.

So, how do we unstick our “wanter”?

One way is by remembering the words of Jesus….A man’s true life is not made up of the things he owns, no matter how rich he may be……Luke 12:15

….and we need to learn how to be content. I’ll address contentment in part two of this post found here.

God on God

I love to read Scripture, but it can often confuse me and apparently it confuses others as well since we have so many translations and opinions regarding such issues as salvation to name but one.

There are so many things at play with reading Scripture.

What did the original text say in the original language?

Who was the writer addressing the Scripture to?

What was the context of the times?

My own personal frame of mind as I read and study also has something to do with the message I receive. As well as the condition of my heart…..have I asked God prior to my reading to help me understand…to speak to me through the reading?

When discussing this with a friend the other day she remarked it would be so much more simpler if we could all instantly know what the Scriptures meant in every case…..

However, I feel that that the reason we often have confusion over Scripture isn’t just because we don’t get it…..perhaps we aren’t ready for the particular passage to speak to us. Perhaps we aren’t there developmentally as a Christian…perhaps it doesn’t apply to us at that particular moment in time.

As an educator is would seem the Bible is the perfect source for an individualized education. Everyone takes away from their study of Scripture something different ….something that only applies to them. God speaks to us through our Scripture reading and sends each of us an individualized message.

In some situations though God’s word is very clear to everyone. Even though many theologians and lay people have tried their best to describe God we really should go to the source.

Exodus 34: 5-8 provides a perfect explanation of God given by God himself.

The Scripture states: The Lord came down in a cloud, stood with him there, and proclaimed His name Yahweh. The the Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed: Yahweh – Yahweh is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, and rich in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving wrongdoing, rebellion, and sin. But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the father’s wrongdoing on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation. Moses immediately bowed down to the ground and worshipped.

God describing himself…..you can’t get it any clearer, can you?

13 Things About the Book of Exodus

1. There are 40 chapters.

2. Moses is the accepted author.

3. Exodus presents the story to show how Israel became a nation.

4. One purpose of Exodus was to show the Lord as redeemer as seen by the Hebrews when they were delivered from slavery.

5. The second purpose of the second book of the Bible regards law. Laws were established for the Lord’s redeemed people to live by.

6. The first extensive poetry in the Bible, Israel’s Song, is found in chapter 15.

7. The themes of Exodus are the Lord, plagues, redemption, convenant, Ten Commandments, and the tabernacle.

8. Jesus is symbolized in the Passover story (12:13).

9. The events of Genesis were written down to provide a history for the young nation.

10. The only account of the actual exodus of the Hebrew people is in the Bible. There are no references to it in any other work nor is there archeological evidence to date.

11. Some Egyptian sources do confirm the general situation that occurs at the end of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus.

12. These Egyptian sources tell of the Habiru, a nomadic people that entered the Pharoh’s land due to famine.

13. Extrabiblical literature does confirm the Egyptians used slave labor for their extensive building projects (1:11).

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Did Moses Write the Pentateuch?

The word Pentateuch is taken from the Greek penta + teukhos meaning “5 scrolls”, and it is commonly used by scholars to describe the first five books of the Old Testament. However, Jews refer to this same group of books as The Torah or “the law” since Jewish law is contained there. In this post I will use the words Pentateuch and Torah interchangeably.

Moses is generally listed as the author for the Petateuch. However, many still doubt this. They wonder if Moses actually wrote the text?

More space is given to the life and teachings of Moses than any other Old Testament figure. We learn about the 40 years Moses lived as an Egyptian prince, the 40 years he spent as a desert shepherd, and the 40 years he served as Israel’s greatest leader.

Many scholars accept the testimony of scripture at face value, as I do, and therefore affirm Moses authored the first five books of the Old Testament. Christian as well as Jewish tradition also agrees that Moses wrote the books. Jesus and Paul both confirm Moses authored the book (Jn. 7:19 and Romans 10:19). The Old Testament claims he wrote it as seen in Exodus (17:14, 24:4, and 34:27). Other Old Testament validations occur at Numbers (33:2) and Deut (31:19). New Testament claims are made at Luke (24:44) and 1 Corinthians (9:9). However, for some people references in the Bible are not enough for scholarship on the Moses question.

Hartman, a German scholar, had argued that Moses couldn’t be the author because writing would not have been invented during his time. Today, we know better. Moses could have written the Torah. He could have written it in Egyptian hieroglyphics, Hebrew script, and Accadian cunneiform. In Acts 7:22 Paul reminds us that Moses was educated “in all the learning of the Egyptians.” It also makes sense to me that as the leader of Israel Moses would have wanted to provide a written history of his people since every nation records their history.

In 1753, Jean Astruc, a French doctor, claimed Moses, like many writers today, used two documents to write Genesis. The evidence he used was the text itself. Moses refers to God in two ways. Astruc’s reasoning is that the text used various names for the Lord depending on which resource was being used. Astruc said one resource represents the sections of the Pentateuch where Moses refers to God as Elohim. Scholars use the letter “E” to refer to this source. Another source was used where Jehovah is used to refer to the Lord. The letter “J” is used to denote the Jehovah source.

Over the years the theory was elaborated on and other documents were discovered that might possibly have been sources for the Pentateuch. The Deuteronomic source is referred to as “D”, and the Priestly resource is referred to as “P”.

String all of these letters together and you have something called the JEDP Theory. Some scholars believe these resources were put together by other writers in the ninth and in the sixth century B.C.

The debate really heated up in 1878 when questions were raised and the idea that Moses wrote the Pentateuch was basically abandoned by many. Jules Wellhausen, a German scholar, supported and publicized the Document Theory that created an alternate scenario regarding the authorship of the Pentateuch. He as well as others heavily pushed the belief that the Torah evolved over time…in fact, over several centuries, and was finally compiled from various sources during the time of Israel’s kings.

When you do a parallel check as to what was going on in the world during this time it is very easy to see why the JEDP Theory was so attractive to 19th century critics. This was the Age of Darwin, and the JEDP Theory fit very well with the anti-supernaturalistic ideals of the 1800s where many had an agenda to ramp the Bible down to a human level. In their thinking the Bible could not have been divinely inspired because it was nothing more than a compilation of various sources of literature.

A critical look at the JEDP Theory shows some obvious cracks:

*the scholars who worked on the theory pick and choose various sections of the Pentateuch to analyze which means there is no uniform method of comparison.
*there is no historical evidence to date which indicates knowledge of the resources or acknowledges any compilation efforts by any persons
*we now know of many archeological findings that support Torah writings are ancient and not products of the ninth and sixth centuries B.C. For example, the Ebla Tablets contain many of the same type names found in the Torah. There are also other examples from before the ninth century B.C. that use the language forms found in the Torah.
*From a literature standpoint the Pentateach follows a logical sequence, and the style of writing is consistent throughout the five books.

There are also other objections to the idea that Moses wrote The Pentateuch. Some state that Moses was not alive at the time the events occurred in Genesis, there were no written resources for Moses to use, and therefore based on that he could not have written it. Well, based on the JEDP Theory we know that people were writing during this time, resources were available, and it makes sense that at the time Israel was becoming a nation they would have recorded their history.

Did Moses really need a written resource to relate the events in Genesis? Moses was given the Ten Commandments directly from God (Exodus ). Doesn’t it also make sense that if God gave Moses the Ten Commandments He also gave Moses the divine inspiration to record the events in Genesis?

Christians believe that ultimately the entire Bible was authored by the Holy Spirit. The authors of each book were divinely inspired. In fact many scholars that favor divine inspiration state that the Bible has dual authorship. This does not mean that human and divine worked together. It does mean that the works are all human and all divine at the same time. The divine author kept the human author from any errors.

As stated before I believe Moses was involved with writing the Pentateuch. He had the knowledge, he had the skills, and he had a direct line to the Lord.

Exodus 18: Jethro Comes For a Visit

The eighteenth chapter of Exodus relates a visit Moses has from his father-in-law. Jethro, a priest of Midian, after hearing of Moses’ success goes to visit him. Jethro brings along Moses’ wife, Zipporah, and their two sons Gershom and Eliezer.

Moses is told Jethro has arrived and hurries to greet him. Strangely the text gives no mention of a reunion between Moses and his family. Many feel that the opening verses of this chapter serve as a literary foreshadowing of Christ’s future glory. Moses represents Christ. The Jews are represented by his sons while Jethro represents the Gentiles. Since Zipporah is a Gentile and is the bride of Moses she represents the coming church. In the Millenial Kingdom all will share in the blessings.

Jethro gives praise to the Lord when Aaron and other leaders come to visit him. He has either become a convert to the one true God or was already a believer.

Jethro watches Moses and sees he is overburdened with the many complaints the people bring to him. They were lined up in front of him from morning until evening. (Exodus 18:13)

Jethro tells Moses to find some capable honest men who fear God and hate bribes. Appoint them as judges…. (Exodus 18: 21-22)

Jethro continues…If you follow this advice, and if God directs you to do so then you will endure the pressures, and these people will go home in peace. (Exodus 18: 23)

Later Jethro returns to his own land.

At first glance this seems like good advice. Go to any self-help bookshelf and you’ll find the same advice in any book regarding time management and organization. Delegate, delegate, and delegate.

While I don’t think this is bad advice for many of our jobs, many scholars contend it was bad advice for Moses.

Why?

Moses had been given a specific task by God. Those tasks when assigned are never given without the grace needed to complete them. God had been speaking to Moses directly without the involvement of another person. Moses should have carried on until God intervened.

Like most opinions you can usually find a few favoring each side of an issue, and this is no different. Some think Jethro’s advice was divinely given and because it was sensible it was the correct thing for Moses to follow it.

In Exodus 2 Jethro is referred to as Reuel. “in time Reuel gave Moses one of his daughters, Zipporah, to be wife.” Some scholars suggest that Reuel was his given name while Jethro was a title of honor such as “excellency”.

There is also a chronological problem with this Exodus 18 as verse 5 mentions Jethro coming to Mount Sinai, however, the Israelites did not arrive there until chapter 19:2. One account states that the text appears out of order so that there is no interruption within the account of the meeting with Jehovah and the giving of the law.