The trampled Wal-Mart employee incident says a great deal about the age in which we live!

The morning after Thanksgiving has been known for many years as "Black Friday"—the busiest shopping day of the year. Stores in the United States traditionally try to entice customers to their retail outlets on this day with bargains that are usually not repeated.

Every year the store openings get earlier. Shoppers line up well before dawn, ready to rush in as soon as the doors open to be among the first to get limited sales items.

Perhaps it was inevitable that in the midst of such frenzy a tragedy would occur. And it did—on November 28, 2008 at a Wal-Mart store in the state of New York.

When the doors opened, crowds surged in and trampled to death a 34-year-old store employee who was 6'5" tall and weighed 270 pounds.

In effect, the young man died so that those who arrived first could save a few dollars on the latest electronic gadget! To put it bluntly, a human life was worth less than things!

This has long been a materialistic age, especially in the western world and most especially in the United States, where many stores open 24 hours a day and seven days a week in intense competition to get business. Employees have had their family lives almost destroyed as they work long hours for minimal wages, neglecting spouses and children at home.

There is no thought for a day of rest, giving people an opportunity to worship the God who has given them everything. Ironically, the only time most stores think about religion is when they can make money on it during the annual holiday season which began the day after Thanksgiving!

It is perhaps appropriate that amidst all this greed, our economy seems to be collapsing. Every day the news gets worse. The stock market has been in turmoil for months, affecting the retirement funds of millions. House prices keep falling; unemployment is increasing; and business is down. These worrisome events are now worldwide problems, as nations economically implode.

Tens of millions of people who have neglected God for years in a mad pursuit for wealth are now losing everything.

Perhaps this is what Jesus Christ had in mind when He said: "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:19-21).

No society can prosper indefinitely if it is built on wrong values; and greed is most assuredly wrong. When a lawyer asked Jesus what was most important in life, His response was quite simple: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:37-39).

In other words, true and lasting happiness is built on a solid foundation of putting God first in our lives and through our relationships with people, beginning with family.

When people care more about people than they do about material goods, tragedies like the one at Wal-Mart will not happen. Even Black Friday would be a thing of the past!

Some stores this year tried to beat the rush by beginning sales a day earlier, on Thanksgiving Day itself. A day set aside by the Pilgrims almost four centuries ago as an annual day giving thanks to the Almighty for His blessings seems set to become yet another sales day as gratitude has been replaced by greed.

Clearly, money is still the nation's number one god. As long as it is, we will continue to experience mounting economic and social problems!

Long ago the apostle Paul warned: "You must understand this, that in the last days distressing times will come. For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid them!" (2 Timothy 3:1-5, New Revised Standard Version).