In that day the Lord will snatch away their finery: the bangles and headbands and crescent necklaces – Isaiah 3:18

Today’s Scripture Reading (November 2, 2013): Isaiah 3

Nancy is successful business woman. But she is also a wife and functions as part of a family unit. And Nancy has a secret – she has a secret stash of Credit Cards and she fears that one day her husband will find out about them. She has gone to great lengths to hide the cards. She rented a Post Office Box to hide the bills that come in from the rest of the family. She has secret places in the house to hide some of the treasures that she buys, other items she tries to convince family members were bought on sale “a long time ago” and that she “almost forgot that she had them.” But the fear remains.

Part of Nancy’s fear is that she is smart enough to recognize the pathology. She buys things to calm the fears that she has about life. But spending also has the effect of creating more anxiety in her life as she continues to be afraid that someone will find out about her secret. And the only way that she can calm that fear is by buying something else. And the cycle continues in her life. But there is a problem that is also being created by the behavior. In spite of the fact that both Nancy and her husband have good paying jobs, the family is just getting by financially – a fact that increases Nancy’s fear of being found out which increases her desire to buy.

I talked about Nancy, but I could have talked about Frank who seems to spend money on everything that his heart desires. He has never grown the maturity inside of himself that allows him to simply say no. He simply sees, wants and buys driving himself deeper and deeper into debt.

In fact, I could have talked about our governments who seem to do the same thing. Somehow we have lost touch with the reality that every dollar that we borrow at some point will have to be paid back. But with this deep sense of immaturity we seem willing to just push the “paying back” into the laps of our children and grandchildren. I get that there will be a price to be paid, that some services may have to be reduced, but it is only the immature that somehow do not realize the connection between how much money can be raised and how much money can be spent. The truth is that in our society the act of buying is simply our drug of choice. It is addictive and it is dangerous, and as a society we are threatened by our own uncurtailed spending, but we are also so addicted to the drug that we cannot see another way to live.

Isaiah sees problem. We need to depend on the things that we can buy because we have lost all faith in the God who created us. And Isaiah speaks of the time when God will push back, removing all of the things that we love and restricting our ability to obtain more – all with the hope that we will look once more to him and trust in him. God says that in that day I will remove from them all of the trinkets in which they have put their faith – hoping that they will return to the one who created them - and who loves them dearly.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Isaiah 4