So much junk

The international space station is full of trash/junk/garbage. (see this link) When I read this article this morning, I was struck by how much of a parallel to modern life this is. The space station has a pretty good excuse. When the shuttles were grounded after Columbia broke up in 2003, there was no way to get the garbage out. So, the station started to fill up. Now, however, a new shuttle is going to go up, but it is going to drop off more than it can pick up, so the pile will just get larger.

Sound like anybody's life that you know? The modern American marketing campaign has one goal (and really only one goal). It is to get you to be dissatisfied with what you have so you will buy a new one. And what it is is really immaterial to this entry. If you have something and you are not satisfied with it and you want to replace it, the marketing campaign has worked on you. Don't you feel manipulated? I know I often do.

See my earlier posts on Old + New = Broken. During the time I was having all of those lawn-mower issues, I considered ditching that old tractor and getting a new one. But, during my devotions one morning, I was reminded of this passage written by Paul in Phillipians 4:11-12

...for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.

Paul says he learned how to be content. He didn't need more stuff, he needed to be content. In our quest to get more stuff and to be discontent the way the marketers would have us be, let's remember the calling of the Bible, God's very voice, and learn to be content in whatever circumstance we are in.