In his book Money, Possessions and Eternity, Randy Alcorn raises the concern that most of us, having lived our entire lives in our American culture, do not know what it is like not to be materialistic. This is a real concern for those who wish to move past the materialism that surrounds us. Like Abraham, the journey out of materialism to the life that God would have for us is leaving home and traveling to “a land that we know not of.” Perhaps it is like a young person who has lived all his life in the desert who decides that wants to live by the sea. He doesn’t know what the sea is having never seen it. Perhaps he does not even know where it is. He only knows that he cannot live by the ocean until he leaves everything that he knows. There may be many around him who seeing the mirages say that they have seen the sea. They say that there is no need to take a long and dangerous trip. It is just beyond our reach. How more pitiful it would be for the young man, knowing that it is a mirage, to chase it anyway.
