Rich.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZFFxDcSfeA
Coming to this school, I've had a heightened awareness of affluence. Wealth is everywhere. I'm seeing it on display in everything. I see it in the cars we drive, the clothes we wear, the tuition our parents are paying--it is all around me. They say we're in an economic decline, but apparently things are running pretty smoothly in Malibu. I swipe a meal card everyday and I am given food. I go to class and every minute I sit there is a ridiculous amount of money spent. It is really difficult to grasp the reality of wealth. I guess up until this point in my life, money has been a lot like grace, I did nothing to deserve it, but it's there so that I can live to the fullest. But where does my identity fall in line in the midst of all this relatively filthy wealth? I've tried to break it down to better understand.

1) Acknowledgement- The money is not of me, it's all a gift.

2) Appreciation- We are blessed, spoiled even, and ife should be an illustration of thanksgiving.

3) Altruism- With blessing comes the privilege of an intentional pursuit of the welfare of others.

Without these steps our wealth becomes toxic. It will define our identity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzWtpxHczEU
But when we put on the lens of the cross, when we become "cross-eyed", suddenly the money we have enables us to carry out very Godly things. Rather than being consumed my hedonistic abundance, we can be agents of change, influence, and blessing. I have not yet learned these things. I'm still trying to get a 6 hour a week job. But I'd be a fool to say that I didn't know what it is like to be rich. And because of this my call for an alertness, an awareness, a sensitivity to injustice, and the discrepancy in this world is even greater. I refuse to believe that anything on "God's green earth...can define my worth. My identity is found in Christ."