Black Friday: a dark day indeed!

As I woke up this morning and turned on the TV news, I was confronted by reports of police being called out to shopping centres and images of people all fighting and clambering to grab the latest 'bargain'. The news was trying to put the spin on the story that people were being money wise and shopping for bargains and of course those in the retail industry who were being interviewed were all in favour of this shopping frenzy - you could almost see the pound signs glowing in their eyes!

Now I have no problem with money, shopping or even spending your money wisely, In fact I do all three. However how you do it is just as important. The deals available on Black Friday are quite limited - say only 50 large screen TVs available in the store at the bargain price etc. When you queue outside the shop for hours in the horrendous weather waiting for midnight when the doors are flung open. Then you, along with the rest of the several hundred people who have been waiting, push and barge your way into the shop, you basically grab anything you can find! You may not have wanted the large screen TV, but its on sale and if you don't grab it quick someone else will! This is not wise money management or budgeting - it is greed, pure and simple!

Fights break out, police are called in. In America where the whole 'Black Friday' sale began on the day after Thanksgiving the stampedes have even caused deaths. Thankfully in the UK no one has died - yet.

Over the past few years, since the economic crash people in the UK have been very critical of the way the bankers have handled our money. Yes, the way they behaved was out of greed. But stop, take a look in the mirror (especially if it was one you fought off 12 other people to grab in a Black Friday scramble!). It is not only the bankers who have a problem with greed - we all do.

"Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of posessions." (Luke 12:15)

Wealth and possessions are not the main aim or ambition of life. They are not bad in and of themselves - in fact they can be used wisely for the Kingdom. But we need to be good stewards of the wealth God has given to us. Your value as a person is not in what you own, but in the value Christ has placed within you.