Is More Really Better

“Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has no place to lay his head” Matthew 8:20

I think it is fair to say that never before has a generation had more “things” than the present one, yet with all of the “toys” available to us, from hand-held computers to digital “you-name-its,” we are consuming more drugs for headaches and for shattered nerves than ever before. If “more were better,” then surely, we would be on the threshold of an unprecedented utopia, but it just has not worked that way.

There is a time when having less means more simplicity, which produces greater peace of mind and happiness. When a builder has a problem with a house he is constructing, he goes to the blueprint–remember the adage, “When everything fails, read the instructions,” right? That is part of the reason we need to think through the complexity of life styles and the pressures of living today.

Jesus Christ said, “Foxes have holes and bird of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” Matthew 8:20. He owned no real estate, though the whole world was His. He borrowed another man’s boat to row on Galilee, though on occasion, not having a boat, He simply walked on the surface of the water in the power of God the Spirit. The only thing that we know for certain which He possessed was a seamless robe which the soldiers took from Him and gambled to see who would get it.

You may have observed that some of the richest men in the world were some of the unhappiest, proving that money cannot buy happiness. John Paul Getty, once the richest man in the world, said he would gladly give all of his money for a happy home; but of course, he did not take the step to experiment with the possibility.

This is not to suggest that poverty will produce happiness, but what Jesus taught is that happiness does not come from the abundance of things which money will buy. What He did have, which we desperately need, is simplicity.

Simplicity demands that we not live beyond our means–financially, emotionally, or physically. It is God’s antidote to the pressures of life.