THE disappointment that results from sacrificing our lives to the gods of materialism has been termed by one keen observer, "the tyranny of things." It takes more "things" than ever before to satisfy the average American today. Soon he's busy holding a garage sale to get rid of things he doesn't know what to do with so that he may have more room for new things, which as soon as he gets he doesn't know what to do with either.
Here is seen the enslavement of man to matter. It's illustrated by the man whose wife had a desperate desire for things. There was always something she kept pestering him to get for her new coats, a new car, pearls, furs, baubles without end. Her husband was a top businessman, so was able to gratify her every wish. Being a man of foresight, he also bought burial plots for both himself and his wife against the eventual day of their passing. He even selected their tombstones and ordered the inscriptions. "On my wife's," he instructed the engraver, "put 'She Died of Things.' And on mine write 'He Died Providing Them for Her'!"
It's ridiculous. But so many are caught up in the great rat race, which consists of fighting and trampling everyone else in order to get more and more of that which doesn't satisfy. More possessions, more clothes, more luxurious cars, more "super-duper, electro-magic, self-defrosting, miracle-tuning, marvel-making gadgets and contraptions to take the place, for a small down-payment, of last year's models of the very same things," as one sociologist puts it.
Could it be that Seventh-day Adventists, even Adventist workers, have accepted the false promises of the so-called "better life"? Is the tyranny of things keeping us from being about our Father's business? And what about our work and our institutions? Are we overlooking the real objectives of our work and movement while we childishly tinker with our gadget toys? Will a look back over the past year bring us joy because we put Him first, not "things"? I hope so. If not, we have a new year ahead to seek first the kingdom of God. That's a hopeful thought, isn't it?