I get buyer’s remorse, but in reverse. I pat myself on the back for a job well done of leaving a store without buying any unnecessary items, and then halfway home, I get that familiar pang of regret that I have left something behind that, seemingly, would have fulfilled me. This month, it was black satin bows. I’ve never, not even once in my entire life, thought about black satin bows. Yet there I was heading home from the store feeling for all the world that I had made a grievous mistake. What will I put on my Christmas garland now? The Christmas garland that I don’t have. The Christmas garland idea that only manifested at the sight of black satin bows.
I think that is, partly, what is meant by the “lust of the eyes”. I’m certainly not implying that seeing something nice and purchasing it is sinful, but I am asserting that when we pine for something we “didn’t know we needed”, we are on a slippery slope to discontent. This was a common problem when I was planning the school year when I first started homeschooling. I started with gratitude for the books we were given, and then quickly fell into doubt when I saw glimpses of the shiny new curriculum advertised in nice magazines, held by, what appeared to me, to be eager students, made willing learners by the product in hand. Our hearts can be so often, teetering on a fence between unthankfulness and godly contentment. Our gaze is not meant to be over the heads of the kids sitting at our table. Our eyes should not be trained to be searching out the window, or on the internet, for the thing that will make us happy. God’s gifts are so abundant to His children, that even if our books are ratty, or our house is unfinished, or our kids need to spend all week on something that we thought they should have known by now, He is good, and our gratitude is the key to contentment.
We have so much to be thankful for.