What's Filling You?

6 Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.7 Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots:8 Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:9 And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not.

10 Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty.11 The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.12 For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low:13 And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan,14 And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up,15 And upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall,16 And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.17 And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.18 And the idols he shall utterly abolish.19 And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.20 In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;21 To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.22 Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of? (Isaiah 2:6-22 KJV)

The land is 'full' of human resources - like worldly wisdom, wealth and power. This combination is a classic setup for a chain reaction: those same assets that produce arrogance in us also lead to our failure to trust in God (see Dt 17:14-17). In the words of Quaker writer and founder the colony of Pennsylvania William Penn (1644-1718), 'We are very apt to be full of our selves, instead of Him that made what we so much value; and, but for whom we can have no Reason to value our selves. For we have nothing that we can call our own; no, not our selves: For we are all but Tenants, and at Will too, of the great Lord of our selves, and the rest of this great Farm, the World that we live upon.'
Pastor and author Gordon MacDonald comments on Proverbs 11:4 ('Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath'): 'The day of wrath can refer to that dreaded moment when a city falls to invaders, or it can refer to the coming day when God causes history to cease and judges all of humanity. In either case, wealth held closely and jealously becomes a burden rather than a convenience. The point is simple: Wealth is best held loosely and placed beneath wisdom and righteousness on the priority list.'
As we all know only too well, the quest to extricate ourselves from financial idolatry in a consumer-driven society is anything but simple. Sociologist Robert Wuthnow describes the following scenarios:
The sense that materialism has gotten out-of-hand is magnified by the pressures facing middle-class American families. Home entertainment centers and camcorders can perhaps be passed by, albeit not without the suspicion that one is needlessly denying oneself (and one's children) the small perks that everyone else in the neighborhood is enjoying already. But other material temptations are much more difficult to withstand. High mortgage payments and property taxes may strap the family budget but seem inescapable, not because the amenities of suburban living are so marvelous, but because the public schools anywhere else are in disarray (if not downright dangerous). A new car that costs fifteen times what a new car cost a generation ago is likely to seem equally essential, not so much for the luxurious pleasure of cruising along exotic costal highways, but because an older, inexpensive car turns out to be an even worse bargain, given the fact that the local repair-service franchise not only changes ten times the minimum wage for semiskilled labor but also cheats on repair bills and replaces parts unnecessarily. By the same token, frozen dinners, a microwave oven, a dishwasher, and an illegal immigrant hired to clean the house and take one's cat to the vet would have seemed like the epitome of materialism in another time, but now provide the only means available for two-career couples to work hard enough at their jobs to earn the salaries they need to pay for these labor-saving amenities.
It seems like we are pressured from all sides in this debate. However, the task is not insurmountable. We can moderate our living standard and avoid attitudes that run counter to God's clearly defined will though thoughtful, Spirit-led choices.