By Katherine Davies.
With Christmas just around the corner and the pressure to buy, buy, buy filling the air, Tearfund’s Useful Gifts Catalogue offers a meaningful alternative – an opportunity to be a true changemaker this season.
I love a bargain. If I can save $20, it’s very tempting to pay $30 for a shirt I don’t need. And I love buying gifts, so when the sales roll around, beginning with a merry burst of texts, emails, ads and however else they can scream at me to buy more stuff my body begins to steadily rise in anxiety.
What do I need (want)? How many presents must I purchase so my kids know I love them? What should I buy for my family and friends? Where's the best bargain? When will I find the time to click “Add to cart” before that store's 24-hour sale disappears?
A low-level, frantic feeling rises up every time I see an advertisement for a sale.
This year, however, God has been quietly nudging me, culminating in a big push as I stood forlorn in my garden.
I’ve been a busy bee in my garden. I'm trying to introduce more natives, and I’ve fallen in love with them: the swamp daisy with its bright blooms and interesting stems, the Pimelia and its tiny little rounded leaves with balls of small flowers surprising you in spring. I relish perusing my native nursery and bringing home another little treasure to add to my collection.
Deep down, I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t want to face it – I just wanted to buy plants!
Then one day my husband invited a person over to give us a quote for a new driveway. He was friendly and chatty and full of good advice. In his previous life, he had been a landscaper and so began explaining to my husband the problems with my garden, which my husband kindly reported back to me. “Firstly, you’ve got too many plants; there are too many varieties of things.” I nodded as my heart sank – I thought he’d be impressed with my collection. “Your lemon tree has mites, your camellias and daphnes are diseased; you’ll have to prune them back and spray them and they need feeding. You need to prune that bush over there. It's stealing all the sun from the lemon tree.”
The truth is, the lemon tree hadn’t fruited in a while and the camellias hadn’t bloomed. Deep down, I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t want to face it – I just wanted to buy plants!
I had been garden-proud, sure that any landscaper stepping foot on my lawn would look around and think, what an abundantly beautiful garden. Instead, he saw right through it and found excess, infestation and neglect.
I had been so obsessed with consuming any plant that made my heart beat that I hadn’t stopped to nurture and appreciate what I already had.
As I looked around my garden and the work that needed to be done, it dawned on me that the same could be said for the overconsumption that happens during sale time. As we swipe our card, what are we ignoring? What is the cost to our planet, to people and to ourselves?
In the UK, 80% of products bought during Black Friday sales end up in landfill, are incinerated, or are poorly recycled.* As for the clothes we purchase, in Australia, Baptist World Aid’s Ethical Fashion Report found that 89% of companies don’t pay garment workers a living wage at any part of the supply chain.
Something's rotten, and while we often can’t see what our uninformed, frantic purchase is doing to our planet or to the people desperately trying to put food on the table, it’s happening.
It’s hard, I know – we seem to live and breathe consumption, whether it’s the plethora of clothes at our disposal, or new technology, food, TV shows, podcasts and social media – it’s in our faces and it’s only a click away.
We know the cost to the planet and to other people, but what about the cost to ourselves?
From my own experience, consumerism doesn’t breed satisfaction, it breeds discontentment. Always chasing the dopamine hit that doesn’t last. It steals our time, our money, our joy. The temple is full of superficiality and our spirituality suffers.
Jesus declared in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
God’s idea of abundance asks us to look at the birds of the sky and the lilies – He created a world where all have enough, where no one needs to worry about food or clothes. Unfortunately, when we neglect the abundant order of God’s Kingdom, a scarcity mindset can breed anxiety and greed. We can also see how systems and structures that perpetuate inequality are deepened. Those who have enough feel that they need to store up their treasures lest they disappear from the shelves like toilet paper during COVID. Jesus came to this world and demonstrated that true abundance comes from living in a loving relationship with a generous God, a heavenly Father who accepts you for who you are, not how much stuff you have.
Is consumerism distracting you from living in the abundance that Jesus declares for your life? Has it bred a scarcity mindset or made you believe you're not good enough if you don’t have more stuff?
Ann Voskamp writes, “We say we want wholeness and peace but in a broken world, we’ve normalised brokenness, because brokenness, in all kinds of ways, is part of what it is to be human. But to be fully, wholly human is to actually have union and communion with our Father, our brokenness finding wholeness in the unity of the Trinity.”
God desires to spend time with us, to heal us and to do new work within us – and through us, restoring those systems of inequality. Through Him, the fruits of the spirit abound – peace, love, hope and joy amongst many others! That’s better than a T-shirt! But it comes through time… time in prayer, time in His Word, time with the Father!
Next time you're tempted by a sale, think about what may be motivating your purchase – is it a quick fix to a deeper problem? How might this purchase impact our global neighbour or the creation God has called us to care for? Are there other ways to spend your time or show someone you care?
If you want one to say no to overconsumption but still show someone you love them, our Useful Gift Catalogue is a great place to start. Tearfund provides gifts bringing true abundance to those who live in some of the hardest contexts in the world – whether it be hardy seeds for a family to put food on the table or education for a girl who faces the threat of early marriage. These gifts nurture the world and God’s people, reflecting the heart of our generous King.
For gifts that do good visit Useful Gifts.
This set of four illustrated cards supports the ongoing work of Tearfund’s Christian partners as they help communities around tackle the root causes of poverty.
The Good News Bundle
