Vanity Fair

Andrea and I are attending Financial Peace, a financial class here at BPF. I highly recommend it. The class has been good for us, as we sit with others who are rethinking what it means to handle the resources God has given us in a way that pleases Him. We are in the middle of the "rethink" process ourselves.

Tonight I was reading through a section of Pilgrim's Progress. It is an allegory of Christianity as a journey in life through the eyes of a pilgrim named Christian. Christian encounters various trails, troubles and friendships as he travels to the Celestial City (heaven), which really is the beginning of the journey.

I came across the passage where Pilgrim and his friend Faithful must pass through the town of Vanity and through a fair there called, what else ... Vanity Fair.

But that which did not a little amuse the merchandisers was, that these pilgrims set very light by all their wares; they cared not so much as to look upon them; and if they called upon them to buy, they would put their fingers in their ears, and cry, Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity, and look upwards, signifying that their trade and traffic was in heaven.

We live in such a materialistic and consumer driven society that says buy it because "you deserve it". We live in Vanity Fair.

I wish I would more often be like pilgrim; light in my wares, with my fingers in my ears so I would become deaf to the cry of the merchant and turn my eyes toward heaven signifying that my “trade and traffic is in heaven”.

Someday our consumer driven culture called Babylon will fall and like Tony Campolo says:

“When Babylon falls, then, saints lose nothing, for they have invested elsewhere: the kingdom of God”