Changing Our Focus

In 1913, cartoonist Arthur “Pop” Momand created a popular comic strip that would end up running in newspapers for the next 20 plus years. The subject was the McGinis family, who through wit and humor was always portrayed struggling to match the lifestyle of their neighbors, the Jones family. Fittingly, the name of this comic strip was entitled “Keeping Up with the Joneses.” While the content of this cartoon has long been outdated, the sentiments still ring truer than ever. Consider this excerpt from a strip that was published almost a hundred years ago of Mrs. McGinis speaking to her husband, Aloysius.

“Look at Mrs. Jones! She goes to matinees, she entertains, she wears wonderful clothes, she gets something out of life! Aloysius P. McGinis, you’ve simply got to make more money!!”

While going to matinees may no longer be a symbol of social status, we can still relate to the pull to make more money and to keep up with the latest trends and lifestyle standards of our day. In our culture of consumerism, keeping up with the Joneses is not just an expression we are familiar with, it is a reality we experience every single day.

Interestingly, throughout God’s Word we see that God’s priorities are much different than the priorities of the world. In the world of “keeping up with the Joneses” our priority turns inwards, towards ourselves. We become consumed with what we have, and maybe more so with what we do not have and position our lives to get more. We think that getting more will bring fulfillment. Yet in God’s economy, our priority should shift from ourselves to others. Consider this piece of wisdom from Proverbs 11:25: “A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.” The beauty of God’s design is that in shifting our focus to others, to giving rather than getting, we experience deeper fulfillment than we can ever get from trying to keep up with the Joneses.

In today’s age, we may never be able to completely remove ourselves from the pressures to keep up with the Joneses, but let’s be grounded in God’s economy that has a different focus. This focus is on giving rather than getting. With this as our goal, we will be living not only with more generosity but also joy, compassion, love, selflessness, empathy and so much more. The more we seek to grow in this, the more freedom we can experience from the chains of keeping up with the latest trends and maintaining certain status symbols. And we will be more refreshed too! Through living to give rather than to get, we will be modeling a different way for people to live by that leads to far greater fulfillment than the Joneses.