Excessive Need VS. Overwhelming Want

This morning before breakfast I enjoyed a time of sipping some piping hot coffee, that’s always ready by 5 a.m., in the kitchen with “Kisses from Katie” clutched in my hands. Shortly after reading some statistics in the book I got really fired up. I am a statistics kind of person, they always help me understand situations better and push me to do more. This morning in the book Kisses from Katie she talked about returning to the United States after eight months of intense work in Uganda. She cared for orphans, loved with her overflowing heart, and preceded to provide whatever she could for the people that she met. When she returned home she found that the United States and the house she grew up in were no longer her home, but rather had happened to be where she went from being a child to an adult.
            I have felt this feeling of emptiness and frustration upon returning to the States before. Recently though, I have been even more frustrated with myself for fighting the feelings of being different instead of letting it happen. Instead of coming home and making a statement with my actions I fell right back into what I was doing before and knowing it the whole time. Buying clothes I did not “need”, having Starbucks (or other coffee shops way to often) and caring too much about everything that does not matter. I had seen the needs of other before, I had smelt the smell of children that did not get baths often, and I had seen the way people lived and ate in other countries. I have experienced it first hand and am seeing it all over again. Yet, apparently, the first three times it wasn’t enough to keep me on the path I believe I should be on. Maybe these nine months are to make me strong enough to say no to the overwhelming want I often feel in the states.
            Excessive need. I like to define this as people that need the very basics that I take for granted every single day. I do not know what it is like to wonder where my next meal is coming from. I do not know what it is like to wear clothes that have holes in them or to not have shoes. I do not understand what it is like to have holes in my roof that cause the rain to put out the fire intended to cook my dinner. I do not know what it is like to have no mattress. I do not know what it is like to lose loved ones to diseases that have cures and treatment options that I cannot afford. I do not know what it is like to be a mother at seventeen. I do not know what it is like to stress about how I will afford school for my children. I do not know any of these things. I do know that they are what I call excessive needs.
            Overwhelming want. This I define as people who have everything they need, yet selfishly desire more. I am not calling everyone selfish, but I am calling myself. I have everything. I have a family that loves me more than anything, food for every single meal and for snacks, I have a room that is huge, I have a mattress, warm running water directly to 6 faucets in my house and 3 outside, I have a pool for relaxation and personal enjoyment, I have a car to get me where I need to go, I have an endless supply of clothes, a washings and drying machine, and an endless support system of friends and of course my wonderful family. I have so much. Yet, I cannot say how many times I have asked for more out of a selfish place in my heart. Not out of need or out of desperation, but out of selfish desire to satisfy earthly wants that get me absolutely nowhere.
            I feel as though I have reached this realization so many times in my nineteen years of life. This time is different though, I am tired of wanting things that do not matter and that get me nowhere. I desire to live a simple life. I intend on keeping my mattress, my car, and assurance of my next meal. This time I want to live without a desire for more but instead replaced with a desire to share out of my abundance. Resting in the knowledge that I am taken care of, loved, blessed beyond belief, and have everything I could need thanks to the creator of the universe. Wouldn’t Jesus share out of love instead of selfishly seeking little things that mean nothing? Didn’t he bless me so that I could bless others? I have been nothing but over blessed and abundantly loved for the entirety of my life. It is time for me to turn around and share it without a second thought and with reckless abandonment for many. With an overflowing passion in my heart that can only come from Christ.
 
It is time to love recklessly.
 
Verses that inspired this / me:
1 John 2:15-17
James 1:27
James 1:22
Galatians 5:13-14
Romans 12:9-13
And many others…