We drove by so many houses the day we took the Gullah Geechee tour on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. Some looked like mansions, others like resort-style condos, and many were remnants of what used to be. Emory Shaw Campbell, our incomparable tour guide and Gullah history expert, told us the story of a small blue house we passed.

“Back in the old days, you built the size of the house for what you needed…his uncle was a bachelor, so he built a small house.”

We drove by another Gullah house that was clearly abandoned, again small in size but rich in history.

I replayed Uncle Emory’s, as we affectionately called him, words in my mind. “For what you need.” What a foreign concept to outsiders who, as Uncle Emory stated in the beautiful, rich, and rhythmic Gullah dialect, “off come with big money.”

Imagine if the rich, northern landowners thought about the “needs” of anyone besides themselves. Imagine if new home developers thought about the “needs” of new landowners instead of catering to the wasteful “wants” of those who wanted the biggest, most luxurious, and bourgeois dwellings available? Imagine if those who would unethically slide into auctions to outbid Gullah families out of their lands, usurping “heir property” for a few thousand dollars in back property taxes, thought about the needs of those trying to keep their lands in their families.

“…for what you need…” These words hit home and made me examine my own constant desire for more. “If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones.” Luke 16:10 Bible verse made me dive even deeper into my internal work. Did I look at this remnant of a house with the judgmental eyes of someone who wondered how it could possibly hold everything even one person needed?

My father often talks about the small dwellings in the shantytowns in his hometown of Florida. When we visited decades ago, we drove past the remnants of these small homes as well. I wondered if my ancestors ever dreamed that their descendants would drive by their familial homes and question how they lived in such small quarters.

My mind traveled from the remnants of homes I saw in the lowlands of South Carolina, to the remnants of the homes I saw in the shantytowns of Florida. I judged my own home, my own wasted space filled with unnecessary clutter, my own definition of what I thought I “needed” versus what I wanted.

“…for what you need…” I was forced to reexamine my home, my finances, and my life in general. What did I really, truly, honestly “need”? Did I really get this far in life judging my happiness, my satisfaction, and my success by the size of my home, completely ignoring the tremendous blessings God has continued to bestow on my life over and over and over again?

Selah.