Playing dress up was a popular kid’s game when I was growing up. After all, the techies hadn’t invented the distractions that currently occupy kids’ attention and often steal their imagination. With an adult’s clothes-along with accompanying implements found around the various houses, the list of our futures was as endless as our mind’s eyes. Teachers, preachers, housewives, nurses, doctors, princesses, kings, and queens. We were dressed for success and frequently believed we could be these people when we reached adulthood.
Sometimes the dress up doesn’t stop when we become adults; we just choose alternate things to suit up in…money and possessions among them. But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction (I Timothy 6:9 NLT).
Many mistakenly quote the next verse as; “Money is the root of evil” when what it actually says is, For the love of money is at the root of all kinds of evil (v. 10). Human nature leads us to dress in what we love…what draws our time and attention.
Money is inanimate and neutral…neither good nor evil. It’s the “love of” that determines whether we dress in greed or generosity. Criminal acts, marital relationship quandaries, partnership splits, friendship turmoil, and church fights all result from dressing in the wrong definition of success.
Neither money nor what it can buy brings true happiness. Contentment with the necessities of life, realizing possessions are temporary, keeping our motives in check, loving God and people more than things, and sharing with others what God entrusts to us are all good ways to put on clothes that will always fit regardless of age. What attitudes are you dressing in?
Prayer: We recognize You God as the giver of all good gifts and of everything we own presently or ever will. Turn our eyes from greed and toward the opportunities You give us to assist others.
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