Our church has been listening to a video series by Craig Groeschel on “Making Change.”  The four major topics in the video series is: less is more, stress is bad, giving is good, and tomorrow matters. This has really hit home, and I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions this week.

I was a shopping addict, and I still struggle with wanting what I really don’t need or can’t afford. I mean, do I really need a Michael Kors handbag, five pairs of Lucky jeans, and make-up that would feed a child in a third world country for a month?

I think my need for more comes from a place where I had no money to buy anything. At one point in my life I wore my maternity clothes well after I gave birth to Phillip, because I didn’t have money to buy regular clothes. And I probably stood, just like Scarlet O’Hara, with my fist raised to the heavens saying, “I’ll never go without regular clothes again!”

When Mark and I start to talk about a household budget, I go into a tailspin. A budget means accountability, planning, sacrifice—all the words I don’t want to deal with. But then I go to our instruction manual, and the first scripture I remember is: 1 Timothy 6:10 which says, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”

And then, this morning, I was studying James. In James 4:1-3, the bible says, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”

A few months ago, I was talking with a girlfriend who is a lot wiser than I am. I shared that I was praying for a writing career that would allow me to travel around the world (with Mark). She said, “Be careful what you pray for, because God just might send you around the world doing missionary work.” I thought, that wasn’t what I had in mind. I wanted to travel the world in first class accommodations!

So, this week I’ve been asking myself, “How much is enough?” God has given me a lot of resources: a beautiful home, jewelry, clothes, the entire “American Dream.” This week I’ll be evaluating my desires and making some attitude adjustments to be in alignment for God’s best in my life. In the end, God, family, friends, and health are most important and I don’t want to lose sight of that. Can anyone relate?