I don't have to have everything I like

This has lately become my motto , 'I don't have to have everything I like', and I have said it so often that it has almost become like an advertising slogan.


'What I want' and 'what I really need' are two different things.


I have FINALLY understood this after spending an awful lot of money on my camera stuff. Not that I regret buying them, by no means. But it was ever since I've 'lost' that huge amount of money that I began to think twice before I spend another dollar.


I mean, I am now in KL where shopping is great, everything barely costs 50% of the normal price for a similar item in the Aussie Land. It is easy to fall into the trap of spending unnecessarily just because everything is so cheap after converted to AUD, even though I know at the back of my mind I have already had something similar at home, I don't actually need it.


So every time when I am tempted to buy something, I would literally mumble to myself like a mad woman, ' I don't have to have everything I like'.


God tells us clearly in the Scriptures that our hearts are deceptive, contrary to the teaching of the world that tells us to listen to our hearts and live according to our desires, nothing should come in our ways as long as we are happy.


Shopping is just an illustration, there are many other things I could have said. Life is greater than our own desires, greater than our limited understanding, greater than our twisted perspectives. There is a PURPOSE.


Must I have everything that I believe I need? What do they mean to me? What if I had the whole world in my hand, yet my soul died of spiritual thirst and starvation?


After all, there is one thing I've learned. To draw close to the Creator, the Giver of lives, is like having the treasures of the whole world combined...naw, it is more than that.
Nothing is more refreshing and satisfying than to come to the Living Water and drink from Him.


I don't have to have everything I like, that's my latest slogan. But I certainly have to have my Lord.