A Question from Katniss

Enough fiddling with design elements. Time for a real post.

What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food appears at the press of a button? How would I spend the hours I now commit to combing the woods for sustenance if it were so easy to come by? What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol, besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of tributes to roll in and die for their entertainment?~~Katniss Everdeen, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

This quote says it all. The people of the capitol, obsessed with food, appearance, and entertainment at the expense of hungry people in the districts. Unfortunately, a tale as old as time.

I can't shake Katniss' question: How would I spend the hours I now commit to combing the woods for sustenance if it were so easy to come by?

No soap box about unequal distribution of resources. I've stood on that box and filibustered.

Never mind feeling guilty that I'm not combing. God planned my birth in the richest country in the world at its richest hour {Before you remind me of the recessions, let me remind you: We worry about whether tomatoes are from heirloom seeds}.

To anguish over food in the fridge, that's just ingratitude. Who am I to tell God that He should have done it differently, given me less?! His food is a blessing. But He blesses for a reason!


It sounds so perverse, but modern christian culture has a tendency to covet poverty and persecution, or at least romanticize it. We read verses like James 1:9 Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and Matthew 5:6 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, and hear that we're cursed with wealth and ease. The poor are constitutionally better because they are poor. Jesus doesn't like rich people. I don't think that's true at all. A rich person buried Jesus; rich people funded the early church and housed the apostles; a rich man sponsored the writing of Luke and Acts. Jesus loves people, rich or poor. But he doesn't like greed and hoarding, finding security in wealth.

The question again is a simple one: I have hours per day of time because God has blessed me with plenty. What am I doing with them? How am I filling that time? Maybe, we've been relieved of the burden of hunting food for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we might walk in them? Ephesians 2:10

I won't presume to categorize good and bad time fillers. Who needs another list to feel guilty about? The question is personal, how would I spend the hours? I find that I need to ask this question of myself daily, because I forget what a blessing our full cupboard is and what a blessing my free time is.

Heavenly Father, every good and perfect gift comes from you. Faithful, generous, loving Father! You know my needs before I even ask and have given me so much. Thank you for a full pantry and healthy, growing babies, for grocery stores with produce. Thank you for time. Please show me how to use it! Where are the good works you have for me? Let me walk faithfully in them. Amen!

Any thoughts? How do we live in a land of plenty with gratitude and responsibility?