Freedom Really Isn't Free

​This life. This freedom. We take so much for granted. We can lay in our cozy beds each morning with luxuries at our fingertips. Hot coffee. Air conditioning. A smart phone. How do most Americans suffer for freedom? What do we suffer for the cause of Christ? Not much. Sadly, not much at all. Shame on me for so quickly taking it for granted and shame on me for letting any utterance of complaint of this blessed life I live slip from my lips. 
I read a devotional recently of a group of ladies that went on a mission trip. The woman who wrote it described a time where she sat on a dirt floor and looked around a tiny one room home with a plastic sheet for a roof and no windows. No appliances. No comfortable beds, smart phones or TV's. No smell of coffee brewing, fresh laundry in the dryer or a roast in the oven. Nothing. She asked the mother of six how they could pray for her and what her greatest need was. Her response? "Please pray for me to teach my children to love the Lord all the days of their lives. That's my greatest need." I looked around my bedroom after I read that and I wept. We are a selfish nation and a selfish people. After all the countless blessings God our Father bestows upon us, we complain when our smartphones need charging or we don't have good wi fi. Some days our greatest need is a more comfortable chair to sit in and watch our huge, flat screen TV's or a higher quality thread count on our King size bed sheets. 
Our greatest needs ought to be teaching the generation to come to love the Lord all their days. Teaching them what hard work, freedom and sacrifice really mean. Teaching them all about those who came before us and gave their lives so that we can enjoy this life we so easily take for granted. Teaching them that for some, this freedom we enjoy wasn't really free. They gave everything for its cause. 
What is your greatest need today?