Last Thursday, most of us took some time to be thankful for the blessings in our lives.  Toward the end of the day and into the next, most of us lost our minds.  Like many respectable Americans, my wife and I ventured into Wal-Mart for the first annual 8:00 release of certain products that were marked down considerably.  As we expected, the store was already in chaos and the masses were preparing for war.  What I didn’t expect was the wave of emotion that overwhelmed me when the clock struck 8:00.

When the time had come to gather the spoils, those that assembled themselves around the electronics that I hoped to purchase began to push, shove, disrespectfully raise their voices and abandon all reason as their made their greed their god and placed merchandise above maturity on their priority list.  And I quote…”The only way you’re going to get through this crowd is push!”  Seriously?  At the risk of sounding Glenn Beckish…I was amazed and disappointed at the conduct of those in the store and wondered how we wound up in this pit of selfishness and lack of concern for our neighbor.

Proverbs 22:1 says, “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver and gold”.  This verse was obviously forgotten on Thanksgiving…rather Black Thursday/Friday.  I purposely chose not to involve myself in the ridiculous display of selfishness.  Instead, I stood back and literally felt the tears well up as I realized we are no longer the America we used to be.  On this two-day shopping spree, America spent money that she doesn’t have (credit) to buy things she wouldn’t want for people she doesn’t even like.  Then we have the audacity to call it Christmas.  This is not right.  Something must change.  Something will change.  But only if we change it.

I promised myself that I would not sink to childish “you stole my toy” type of attitudes.  I waited and when the rush was over, in less than two minutes, I respectfully made my way to the scene of the “accident” and began to search for the video game I had in mind.  Yes, I still play video games…but respectable ones.  Let’s all take a moment and ponder the wonder that is Madden NFL in High Definition!  I love to win World Series’, Super Bowls and National Championships on my Playstation simply because I’m too old, too fat, too slow and not talented enough to win the real thing.  But I digress.

I really didn’t expect to find the game that I wanted given the fact that it is still one of the most popular games available and priced a good bit cheaper than normal on this shopping day.  I was right.  I walked away empty-handed and, if I’m being honest, experienced a temptation to buy into the theory that nice guys do in fact finish last.  Little did I know, that theory would be proven wrong just moments later.

We continued to shop for a bit and took in the sights of shoppers who had their carts filled to the brim with stuff they probably won’t even remember that they bought this time next year.  Just before leaving this war-zone,  I decided to return to the greusome wreck site called electronics and try one more time to fish out the one I went to catch in the beginning.  As I made my way through the mess, a gentleman called out to the crowd as he held up the number one item on my list.  It was, to my knowledge, the only one left.  He said, “Does anybody want this?”  To which I responded, “Yes sir!”  He tossed it to me and in that moment the prevailing opinion of mainstream America was defeated.  You simply don’t have to act like a fool to get what you want.  Here’s the funny thing…my wife had pretty much the same experience in the home decor department with towels.  I know…it’s hard to believe that people would abuse their neighbor for a peice of white linen that’s designed to dry our backsides after a shower.  But they were and, like myself, my wife refused to join in the fight.

Proverbs 11:4 says, “Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivereth from death”.  It’s time for our nation to wake up and realize that the stuff we have doesn’t really matter in the end.  The Word of God teaches us that our day-to-day conduct will be judged when we stand before the Lord.  How we treat our families matters…how we treat our neighbors matters…how we shop on Black Friday matters.  My wife got her towels and, just last night, Conner and I sat down and led the Atlanta Falcons to victory over the Baltimore Ravens in the first game of a season that will log many hours of enjoyment and quality time with the two most awesome kids on the planet.  What’s even better than that is when we play that game and use those towels, we have peace of mind.  We know that we didn’t lose our self-respect over merchandise on a shelf or in a bin.  We know that we honored God and His kingdom and He honored us by giving us the desires of our heart.  While many shoppers fought with all of their might to become victorious, we simply put the kingdom and it’s principles of love and respect first.  For that, we didn’t have to wrestle with shame and embarrassment after the fact.  This was our experience on Black Friday.  Black Friday…if we don’t return to the basics of biblical living, the other 364 days of each year will begin to darken as well.