Can I learn to want less?

When I was a young child, it was a big deal for our family to take occasional trips to the mall. The local shopping in our small Tennessee towns was limited to the Dollar General Store. The pickings were slim, a reality never more obvious than when I needed a pair of simple white Keds for my baton twirling recital. The only size my mother could find in stock was two sizes too big. I could hardly complain.

Our family was solidly middle class—my mother, a nurse; my father, a college professor. Yet despite our modest means (or maybe because of them), I learned early to want material things—to believe the lie that “a man’s life consists in the abundance of his possessions,” (Luke 12:15). In middle school, I wanted Esprit shirts and Guess jeans, which my parents could not afford but were guilted into buying for me anyways. When I got a job in high school, I saved up my first paycheck to buy a Benetton rugby shirt and a pair of expensive aviator sunglasses. I wanted these things, not simply for themselves, but for the sense of belonging they could buy me.

Wanting more material things has never served me well. As the Scripture clearly teaches, humans have bottomless desires for more conveniences, more creature comforts, more stuff. Yet as we buy, our thirst is never slaked, our appetite never sated. There are always new and improved versions of what we currently own, which means we never run out of reasons to upgrade.

Consumerism is, of course, a part of the creed of the “inner ring,” as C.S. Lewis called it. You validate your inclusion into certain groups by living in the right neighborhoods, owning the right things, wearing the right clothes, taking the same vacations. You might be a suburbanite, with shiny new toys, or you might be a city dweller, with a more thrifted, vintage look. Either way, you express your identity by physical, material means.

Real courage is required to resist this feature of modernity.

In Unfettered Hope: A Call to Faithful Living in an Affluent Society, Marva Dawn argues that to resist the habits of a consumerist culture, moral courage is required. Moral courage, as defined by William Ian Miller, is “the willingness to suffer discomfort or disgrace in the defense of what is right and good.”

It’s not simply that I should want less, though this, too, is true. It’s that I should practice, with the Spirit’s help, the courageous habit of valuing what is truly valuable. It’s that I should practice, with the Spirit’s help, the courageous habit of saying “enough.” It’s that I should practice, with the Spirit’s help, the courageous habit of grounding my belovedness in God, not in what I own or wear. “When such moral courage is regularly employed by means of many decisions against the inroads of consumerism,” writes Dawn, “it develops into the practice of fortitude for the long haul” (170).

At the end of her book, Dawn uses Martin Luther’s Shorter Catechism to consider the Ten Commandments and their call to live rightly in a world of affluence. Luther’s numbering of the commandments leaves us with two prohibitions against coveting, and Dawn’s meditations on the catechism and commandments prompted me to develop some further examen questions that I plan to include in my rule. (For these questions, I also used the Westminster Longer Catechism.)

In many ways, all the commandments uncomfortably—and necessarily—confront my greed. Yet if I believe Jesus, I can believe that his call to me, to ground my life in more worthy pursuits and aims, is always for my good. That makes self-honesty not something to be feared but vigorously pursued.

You shall have no other gods before me.

• Have I feared, loved, trusted, worshipped, and delighted in God above all things?

• Have I resisted or grieved His Spirit?

You shall not take the name of God in vain.

• Have I misrepresented the holiness of God by my life’s unholy witness?

• Have I tried to control outcomes by presuming on the use of God’s holy name?

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

• Have I entrusted my work to God and observed regular rhythms of rest?

• Have I exerted efforts of justice to make possible my neighbor’s rest?

Honor your father and mother.

• Have I respected all in authority over me, even if I feel they haven’t deserved it?

• Have I borne patiently with their weaknesses, covering those weaknesses with generous love?

You shall not murder.

• By idleness, distraction, or callousness of heart, have I hurt, harmed, or defrauded my neighbor?

• Have I shown charity, compassion, and a readiness to be reconciled to my neighbor?

You shall not commit adultery.

• Have I imagined sex primarily as a means to gratify my own desires?

• Have I been watchful over my eyes and my other bodily senses, of the company I keep and the media I consume?

You shall not steal.

• Is my life characterized by contentment, gratitude, and generosity?

• Have I given and lent freely, or have I inordinately prized worldly goods?

You shall not bear false witness.

• Have I betrayed, slandered, or lied about my neighbor?

• Have I always sought to explain his actions in the kindest way?

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.

• Have I wanted my neighbor’s possessions for my own?

• Have I been discontent with what God has given to me?

You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, slave, ox, or donkey.

• Have I shown true friendship to my neighbor, or have I engaged in petty jealousies and rivalries?

• Have I rejoiced when my neighbor has rejoiced and mourned when my neighbor has mourned?

These questions might be used in a daily or weekly examen, a time set aside to sincerely ask God to, “Search me and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting,” Psalm 139: