I must admit, I love HGTV. I’m pretty sure what Ken is to hockey, I am to House Hunters. There are no car chases, risque scenes, profanity. Just household decor, real estate, and and down-home reality. Clean, guilt-free, family-oriented entertainment.

Right?

The only problem with HGTV is that it perpetuates a system of false beliefs.

You want more. You need more.You deserve more.

After watching families choose between homes with granite countertops, gigantic decks, and park-like landscaping, my house seems to feel, well, a bit small. A bit simple. And compared to the homes House Hunters International? Don’t even get me started.  I feel like we’re a candidate to be rescued by one of those TV shows where they arrive at your door, send you to Disney or a spa while they totally redo the inside of your house. I wonder how you apply for those things anyway . . .

And there goes my contentment. Lost in a sea of desires for what HGTV tells me I need to have.

I Timothy 6:6-10 NIV says, “But 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. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”

And I see those temptations waiting to trap me. Trapped into a larger mortgage, so that we have no opportunity to be generous, even if we wanted to. Trapped in the desire for more things — nicer furniture, newer appliances, better floors, a finished basement. Trapped into needing to work more than we want to afford the stuff that fills our house to the point that we need a bigger house just for our stuff. More. More! MORE!

But the truth is more is never enough. There will always be one more thing to buy. There will always be another something that is nicer than the something that we already own.

More is never enough, until we declare God to be all that we need.

And maybe that means selling our possessions and moving into a ghetto in India. Or maybe it means living in a house that is less than what we could afford, so that we can work where we feel called to, not where we need to in order to pay our mortgage. Or maybe it could even mean someday living in a home featured in a magazine for its glory and grandeur.

But God gets to decide, not us, and I’m content with that.