Audience of One

Materialism and God's provision

This year was always to earn money for various things, such as my laptop, but when thinking about it my goals for the year were purely selfish. My thinking was “if I don’t buy this stuff this year, I’ll never have another opportunity – so I’ll take the opportunity”. The slight problem with this thinking is that I wasn’t talking to God about it, and that he would provide what I needed when I needed it (if I needed it), and that if what I was wanting to buy was necessary for my future then God would find a way for me to get it. (It may have been that God would use my earning this year for me to get it, but as I wasn’t even praying about this I couldn’t exactly find out.)

So this went on for a few months, and it’s only really now that I’ve taken the step of stopping work a few months earlier than I would have done to go on a trip across the world that I’ve really begun to see how wrong my thinking was.

Let me give one or two examples. At the beginning of the year it was my plan to buy a laptop, a hardware interface, microphones and software to enable me to set up my own portable recording studio. This would help me with my degree (as it involves this area of music) and would help me realise my ambition of recording my own EP or album.

The problem with this was that I didn’t really know whether I’d be able to record the album, or indeed need the equipment for the course. The university has its own recording facilities – what I was trying to do was emulate a friend of my cousin’s who had done a similar thing with his own equipment (albeit with the help of a grant, rather than all his own money). I should have thought about this – this guy had got a grant to help him record his album (don’t ask how), so if God wanted me to do the same, surely he could provide something similar? I was so caught up on the desire to own the stuff that I ignored this – I wanted to get my hands on it, and soon, even though there might not be any real need.

If God wants me to get that kind of equipment then he’ll find a way when I need it. At the moment, I don’t really need it, and there are more important things to do with the money. (I still want to record my own album though, but I think I’ll wait till I’ve written some songs before I try and take that any further.)

A second example. Having bought my SLR (possibly a mistake, but now I’ve got it there’s nothing I can do) I had an extensible camera system. With an SLR you can swap lenses around. The lens my camera came with is pretty rubbish, so I’d love to get a new one. I’d been trying to decide for months whether or not to buy this lens I found (28mm prime f/1.8 – beautiful).

Finally, I realised that I didn’t need it, and that there were far more important things to spend my money on (like a keyboard so I can do gigs at uni – there’s still some things I do believe I should be buying). It was a tough decision, but I felt it was the right one – having been ignoring common sense talking about the lens for the past three months.

Two days later I was offered an even better lens (28-70mm L series f/2.8, worth £900 new!) for £140. Bargain! Surely that must mean God had seen my godly decision revoking the former lens and given me an even better one instead? He’d wanted me to give over my finances to him and I had, so now he knew I’d learnt my lesson he’d reward me. Right? Of course not. The first decision was relatively easy to make as the lens was really more than I could afford. This one was affordable, in fact a real bargain – that much harder to say no to. I still needed to learn the lesson.

After a couple of days thinking and praying about it, I decided not to buy the lens. (As my mum said, if I needed a lens like that in the future then God would provide a way when I needed it. This may have seemed like my only opportunity, but God would make other opportunities if it was something I needed.) I went into Dixons where my friend who’d offered me the lens was working, and told him. His immediate response was “Okay – would you like to borrow it when you go to Japan then?”

So God has provided a professional quality lens for my trip to Japan, without me spending a penny. As ever, it’s not what I was expecting at all, and I hadn’t even really been praying about it. Still, there you go. Finally having given up the materialism of wanting stuff (be it music or photography stuff), God provided for me anyway.

I’m not quite sure what the point of this entry is, but I quite like the story of the lens for some reason. It’s a really insignificant example of God’s provision.

Matthew @ 22:59, April 9, 2006 to Diary | Comments (0)