THE PLAGUE OF PROSPERITY

                                                             THE PLAGUE OF PROSPERITY                                                                   

        We tend to be bewitched by prosperity.  John Piper calls it the "apathy of abundance", and says that "comfort and ease and affluence and prosperity and safety and freedom...can often produce weakness, apathy, lethargy, self-centeredness, and preoccupation with security.
      We live such a life of ease that it can suck the passion right out of our spiritual life. We don't feel like we "need" God. We are busy having fun. Visiting friends and family. Deciding where to go on vacation. Researching which car/computer/flat screen TV/ furniture/tools/(fill in the blank) we should buy next. Is all of this bad? Maybe yes and maybe no. But therein lies the problem. As usual, it's about balance. And the real danger is that the imbalance is so subtle that we may not recognize it. That is why scripture, in Matthews account of the parable of the sower, calls it the "deceitfulness of riches". In the 70's, Francis Schaefer called it the desire for "personal peace and affluence", and said it was one of the most dangerous perils that the western church faced.
      Isn't interesting to see down through history how the church has grown through adversity? There are examples too many to count. But examples of growth through times of ease? Not so much. I think that's a part of why the Bible says, "In faithfulness you have afflicted me." Psalm 119:75 He cares too much for us to allow us to blithely slide through life, unaware of how much we need him, and of the peril of relying, even unconsciously, on prosperity. Deep, meaningful faith tends to be harder to come by in times of ease. Much of the Psalms are recorded while David literally fled for his life from Saul.
      But if suffering comes into our lives for many reasons, which scripture clearly says is true, one of those reasons is to get our attention. To strip away the trivial things, like prosperity, that may distract us from what is truly important in life, and to recognize our very real need of God. Needs that prosperity and "things" can't satisfy. If we are too immersed in these things, we won't hear what God is saying when he is asking if we will trust him. And thus our hardships in life will miss their God appointed purpose, that we learn that trust, and instead will be wasted pain. How tragic. Our challenge is to not let this Plague incapacitate us, to let the apathy of abundance create a powerless, meaningless faith that really looks no different to the world than self-reliance. We mustn't buy the lie.
      Nor, by the way, is there piety in poverty. He is merely asking, in a different way, if we will trust him