I receive so many email forwards. Some aren’t worth forwarding, so I delete them. But this one makes a good point:

One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, “How was the trip?”

“It was great, Dad.”

“Did you see how poor people live?” the father asked.

“Oh yeah,” said the son.

“So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?” asked the father.

The son answered:

“I saw that we have one dog and they had four.
We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end.
We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.
Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.
We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.
We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.
We buy our food, but they grow theirs.
We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them.”

The boy’s father was speechless.

Then his son added, “Thanks, Dad, for showing me how poor we are.”

Isn’t perspective a wonderful thing? Makes you wonder what would happen if we all gave thanks for everything we have, instead of worrying about what we don’t have.

The past few decades have seen many people caught up in things, new things, like new cars, new big fancy homes, new designer clothes….why use what you have when you can get new everything? Fueled mostly by borrowed money (borrowed against the house or put on credit cards), new things have been easier to come by and people have gone for them in a big way.

But times are changing. The economy’s in bad shape. House values are dropping and home equity lines of credit (HELOC) are being frozen as a result. Many people have maxed out their credit cards. They’re running out of ways to buy things.

And that’s not all bad. When people are forced to give up their obsession with things, they’ll be able to pay more attention to what’s really important in life: other people, experiences, and especially God. I’ve always liked this saying:

The best things in life aren’t things.