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Our society's values are being corrupted by advertising's insistence on the equation: Youth equals popularity, popularity equals success, success equals happiness. ~John Fisher

I was driving to work this morning and as I am driving I look over and there is an empty field.  Well, I say empty.  It had grass but it also had about eight signs all the same size placed every thirty feet or so.  The interesting thing about this was that everything on all the signs was there to try to help me with all my issues.

There was teeth whitening for a brighter smile, massage for my stressful life, insurance for what could happen but rarely does, cell phones for any emergency,  clothing to replace what I already have, weight loss and the ultimate, psychiatry for when the rest of this gets to be too much. 

We are continuously bombarded by advertisements.  They are on the radio and TV, along the road on your way to work and if you are really lucky you will get a few phone calls throughout your work day that are recorded messages telling you what you need to have a better life.  

I have a DVR on my TV so I have learned a trick that will help me skip past all the commercials.  If I turn on the TV when I get home and hit the pause button I can go around the house doing all the things I need to take care of after a long day at work and then when I finally sit down I can fast forward through all the commercials and watch any show within 15 minutes. 

We often wonder why the children of today are so caught up in how they look to the world.  They are bombarded by advertising that tells them how they can correct their issues and the models they see on the covers of magazines have had their flaws airbrushed away.

God didn’t create us to work all our lives to change what we look like.  He created us in his image and trying to fix what we think is wrong with us is like saying to God you made a mistake.       

 

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I see commercials and I often buy into what they are trying to sell.  You created me as a one of a kind, so please help me to remember that when I start believing what the advertisements say is wrong with me. You didn’t create me so that I would live my whole life trying to correct a mistake.  I am a child of God and there is no mistake in being Your child.

Scripture:   “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?  “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?  So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.  Matthew 6:25-34