Is it time for you to trim the excess from your life?

If ever there is a time of year that is a living example of the negative experience of excess, it’s now.

Yesterday, people observed Thanksgiving Day with a feast … an excess amount of food not only spread out on the dinner table, but devoured with gusto! Most of us eat too much on the holiday!

This morning is “Black Friday,” a day where people across the country will make made dashes through stores shopping for Christmas gifts and, in the process, probably spending too much. We are excessive in our shopping.

We’re so excessive in our shopping that this coming Monday is known as “cyber Monday,” a day set aside to shop even more, this time by shopping online!

But this coming Tuesday is known as #GivingTuesday, a day that’s an annual movement to encourage people to donate to charities of their choice. Do you think people will relish #GivingTuesday as much as the other opportunities to get?

As rich as we are, it’s hard for Americans to think we can have too much — of anything!

But we can.

Excess causes us trouble …

“Too much activity gives you restless dreams; too many words make you a fool,” Ecclesiastes 5:3.

In teaching us to pray, Jesus gave us an example that was very different than our desire for excess. He said we should pray, “Give us today the food we need” (Mt. 6:11). He didn’t say to ask for a pantry full of food to last a month, or a freezer stocked with food for months to come. I’m not saying having those things are bad or wrong, but the idea is to learn to discipline ourselves regarding our desires and edit the excess out of them.

By trimming away excess, we’ll have more to give, more to help others with, more to invest into the kingdom of God.

Are your desires, spending, and habits excessive? Or have your learned to practice self-discipline and edit your desires?

Scotty