Hello everyone.

The shopping season has returned. As the year draws to a close, it seems as if newspapers and every form of media have made a firm decision to make people buy something—anything. A full‑scale sales war is underway. And that’s not all. The flood of junk mail delivered to our homes—filled with dazzling colors and attractive models—insists that we must wear this season’s style, or that these new products are more convenient and beautiful, urging us to claim them for ourselves. Even on our computers, advertisements and online catalogs overflow, showing us everything stacked in department stores and shops.

Merchants prepare elaborate strategies for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. Meanwhile, ordinary people often feel strangely empty if they don’t buy something, and so credit‑card debt rises sharply during this season. How do I know this so well? Because for many years, whenever the holiday season arrived, I too felt a compulsive urge to buy something. I wandered through shopping malls until I was exhausted and could walk no more, only then returning home. Of course, for business owners, this is the season when they must make their profit—sometimes the profit of the entire year depends on these weeks.

During this shopping season, I would like us to take time together to consider what we truly must acquire. We have many needs. Yet there are things we desperately need that money cannot buy and material goods cannot replace. Those who are battling illness would not trade their health for all the riches in the world. Even the healthiest among us would refuse any offer that required giving up their health. Without health, no matter how many things we wish to do, we lack the strength and desire to do them.

At times, when speaking with pastors’ wives, I meet those who are deeply concerned about the health of their church members. Seeing members exhausted from overwork, they often say with worry, “What if they collapse one day?” They have seen too many families fall apart because of health problems. But physical health alone is not enough. We also need mental and spiritual health—the health of the soul. Body, mind, and spirit are the most fundamental needs of human life. Through these three, we discover and receive what we truly need.

We are told that we now live in the most consumption‑driven era in human history. Of the six billion people on earth, only twenty percent consume and deplete the planet’s limited resources, while the remaining eighty percent struggle in poverty and hunger. Yet despite this excessive consumption, the quality of our lives continues to decline. Clearly, something has gone wrong somewhere at the very beginning.

As we live our lives, we all know that we need more than money. We need leisure, creativity, beauty, the desire to help others, the ability to weep and laugh together, honest conversation, and open hearts. But the small things we once thought unimportant can suddenly grow into enormous problems—like a dinosaur standing before us—revealing how fragile and unprepared we truly are.

Some of you may know the writer Sarah Ban Breathnach. Her book Simple Abundance was translated into Korean under the title The Discovery of Happiness, arranged by seasons. I first encountered her book years ago in an American bookstore, where it was displayed as a bestseller. I read it with great interest. Later, I found the Korean translation in a bookstore in Korea and bought it again to read it more fully.

Her confession at the beginning of the book was striking: “People tend to live life backward. They try to have more—more money, more possessions—thinking that if they can do what they want, they will be happier. But the result is the opposite. We must first return to our true selves, and then do what is necessary to achieve what we desire.”

She continues: “I desperately wanted money, success, social security, and creative brilliance. But I had no idea what I truly needed. Whenever a wave of emptiness swept over me, I tried to solve it by denying it. I was a workaholic, a caretaker addict, a perfectionist. I cannot even remember the last time I treated myself kindly. I was quick‑tempered, jealous, constantly comparing myself to others, always searching for what seemed missing in my life—yet unable to name it. Money became the only measure of my worth and success. But I lived in constant anger, jealousy, and frustration. It was only while writing this book that I realized why I had been trapped in such despair and rage: I had strayed from the life I was created to live.”

During this shopping season, are you taking time to seek what you truly need?

Too often, instead of investing time in unifying body, mind, and spirit—through reflection, prayer, and walking with the Lord—we live in the disharmony of a fractured life. How many people wound their own bodies and souls, fall into conflict with their families, and carry deep emotional scars because they cannot obtain the material things that flood over them like waves?

As we approach the end of the year, I ask myself: Do I truly know what I need? Am I seeking it? And I resolve once again that in the coming year, I will care for myself more faithfully and pursue genuine happiness.

— Wan‑Hee Yoon, New York Korean Christian Broadcasting, “As I Am,” November 12, 1999