What Your Counselor Never Told You by Dr. William Backus

Author:Dr. William Backus [Backus, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL012000, Deadly sins, Sin—Psychology, Psychotherapy—Religious aspects—Christianity
ISBN: 9781585588879
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2012-11-22T00:00:00+00:00

To Find Your Greed, Follow Your Heart

“But I’m no miser,” I used to tell myself when I ran across such extremes. “I don’t have to worry about being greedy.” Well, it’s not that simple. True, most of us are not cheapskates, nor presumptive heirs to billions. Yet with us greed often appears in less extreme or less obvious forms. Because of its overall prevalence, the deadly sin of greed is hardly noticeable in a society as materially rich as ours. With affluence all around us, could it be that in denying the possibility of greed in ourselves we are comparing ourselves with the culture’s standards rather than God’s? Could it be that instead of seeking to eliminate our greed altogether, we are content merely to be “lower on the Greed Scale” than those in our midst?

Rather than simply loving money to the exclusion of all else, we may cater to it more than we ought, pursuing money or the feel of it in our hands, currying favor in the hopes of financial dividends, savoring the look and texture of stocks and bonds, gazing at the totals in our savings accounts, collecting or owning just for the sensation of possessing. And remember, it’s not just about money! This is greed: living to possess anything—stamps, dolls, autographed balls, books, CDs, paintings, figurines, toys, property, cars, contacts/acquaintances, whatever—with the primary objective of owning, the preoccupation with having, the obsession of getting, and/or the dedication of too much of our lives or the investment of too much of our hearts. “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” said Jesus in Luke 12:34.

Of course, not all desiring is coveting. Coveting is wanting things in a certain way—it is a warped wanting, forbidden in the ninth and tenth commandments, and not just any kind of desire. It is all-consuming, a fixation on what belongs rightly to someone else, whether it be money, house, land, or anything else. To go beyond the recognition that the person or object is truly attractive, to proceed to the point where you imagine possessing it, plan to obtain it, figure ways to get it, become obsessed with the burning passion to have it—this is greed.

As with other sins, our own greed isn’t easy to see. We may have a hard time, for instance, discriminating between the virtue of prudence and the sin of avarice. We want to be generous givers, but how can we know what amount to give? What size gift is truly generous, and what amount is so large as to be foolhardy? We don’t know what tomorrow will bring or what unforeseen emergency will cost huge sums and catch us with insufficient resources. In retaining some while giving the rest, how can we perceive the difference between assertive prudence on the one hand and possessive greed on the other?

Sometimes we are accused of greed by those who believe they are more entitled to the fruits of our labors than we are. Such fault-finding, though it

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