Advertising

Be content with what you have, because God has said, "I will never leave you; I will never turn my back on you" (Hebrews 13:5).

When I was a kid, I remember grownups complaining about billboards along the highways, and how they ruined the scenery when you went out for a drive. But the amount of advertising we were exposed to in the early ‘60s is nothing compared to the onslaught of today. Every car and driver at a racetrack is covered with the logos of sponsors. Almost every major sporting event is named for a corporate donor. Most web pages have banners or pop ups that advertise some product. About ¼ of every hour of television is taken up by commercials. And billboards are alive and well, cluttering both city streets and country highways.

We are bombarded with so much advertising that much of the time we subconsciously tune it out. But advertising works—a clever ad campaign can affect where people go to eat burgers or buy their insurance. Advertising makes children cry for things that their parents can’t afford. Advertising is big business, carefully thought out to influence you.

We appreciate some advertising—when you’re driving through unfamiliar countryside and your gas tank is close to empty, you want to see advertising for the next filling station. But many commercials urge you to purchase things that you don’t need; to lure you in, they suggest that you are missing out on something wonderful if you don’t use their product. Every day, you repeatedly get the message that your life is incomplete, that you are not as happy as you could be. The cumulative effect of this is terrible. Advertisers have made us believe that we can never be satisfied with things as they are right now; there is always something else that we need. The result is that few of us are content with what we have; instead, we view shopping as a quest for happiness, we max out credit cards that we can’t pay off, we spend all our money now and save nothing for the future.

If you constantly want more, more, more, you will never be satisfied. A better alternative is to heed Paul’s advice given to Timothy: godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that (1 Timothy 6:6-8). God can satisfy your need for happiness in a way that no amount of shopping ever can.