I told you how I visited Mexico in November, and while there became convinced that our country is ill with a gluttony apparent in many areas. Well, just to give you one example, back in December I was stunned to find an ad in my monthly Costco magazine for an expensive item. I mean, I know Costco does sell some high ticket items…that part didn’t surprise me. However, the depth of the extravagance was stunning.
Right there in their magazine on page 4 was an ad to buy an 11 pound piece of meat. No biggee, right? But check it out…the price for this was $1199.99. And that was AFTER $300 had been taken off due to it being a Christmas sale. $1499.99 for an 11 pound piece of ribeye. That is $136.36 for 1 pound. Think about that. You can go to an average grocery story and buy enough food for 5 people to last a week or two, depending on what you buy (trust me on this…I do all the grocery shopping in my house now).
This is what I mean by gluttony. Gluttony can be defined as greed or excessive indulgence. Who, in their right mind, needs to have a $136.46 16oz piece of steak. It doesn’t matter that it might be a wonderful piece of steak. It doesn’t matter if you are really celebrating someone or a group of friends. $1499.99 for 1 piece of meat. Even if you fed 22 people with their own 8 oz steak, a $68 piece of steak is “excessive indulgence.”
Look…I do believe in celebrating and, at times, doing something for someone that is perhaps slightly indulgent. If you are someone who bought this meat from Costco, having saved and saved, and really took time to celebrate another person, or hopefully at least 22 people, if not 44 people with their own small 4 oz steak….well good for you. But in our country, not only do we see this kind of excessive gluttony all the time, we (and I mean all of us) live as if we are DUE such extravagance.
OK…not everyone is infected with a desire to buy an excessive piece of meat….but what about name brand clothing? What about the family that spends thousands on their child’s prom night? Or the family that spends thousands at Christmas, with the children often receiving dozens of gifts?
I don’t know….I just remember seeing the add and thinking “there’s just another example.” We don’t need a $1499 single piece of meat. We don’t need most of what we purchase. We need to get a better grasp on contentment. We have so much, each of us. We have so many opportunities, so many things….and yet so often we aren’t content. We moan, we complain and worse, we lust for the supposedly luxurious things of life.
Once we were a country that was simply happy to have our own land, a liberty to pursue our own hopes and dreams, to go on a simple vacation with everyone in the back of the station wagon. We worked hard and didn’t go home to social media to complain about every little thing. We enjoyed seeing our neighbors or helping out with the Girl Scouts or coaching in the Little League. We didn’t run up huge credit card bills trying to have the next cool thing, replacing our phone every other year. We were generally content and happy.
I know we can’t demand or force contentment. The Bible showed us that long ago. It comes from within someone. If you always are looking at the person beside you, bitter that you can’t afford this or that, well you will often be dissatisfied with your life. If, however, you are someone who realizes that the best things can’t be bought and that God provides purpose to your life regardless of your bank account, then like the Apostle Paul, you can be content whether you have a lot or a little.
My prayer is that Costco sold NONE of those meat products and later realized how gross it was to even offer the meat. Sadly, probably didn’t happen as someone who makes far too much money thought it was no big deal to waste $1499….whoops, sorry, $1199….forgot the discount…..thought it no big deal to waste over a thousand dollars on a piece of meat. That gluttony is going to be the ruination of us all.