CONTENTMENT!

1Tim  6:6. But godliness with contentment is great gain.

Some years ago, a friend gave me a digital camera. Those days, using your phone as a camera wasn't popular.

When another of my friend saw that I had a camera, he rushed to get his own.

He brought it out this particular day to show off with it and I was wowed.

His camera was finer than mine.

I didn't ask him but he went on to tell me the features and how much he bought it.

That was when my eyes widened and I knew how expensive my camera was. I told him I never knew because mine was a gift.

I'll never forget the look on his face when he discovered I didn't buy my own.

Most of the time the people you're trying to compete with are not even competing with you.

A friend buys a car, we want a better one.
He lives in a big house, we want a bigger house.
He travels abroad on vacation, we start putting ourselves under undue pressure to do same.

We don't know what they do.
We don't know if what they have was a gift.
We don't know if they are thieves.
We don't know their full story.

We just start competing because we want to keep up with the Joneses.

I'm not trying to tell us not to stretch for more and to live the good life. All I'm saying is for us to be contented.