I heard a report on the radio this morning about wrinkle cream. Consumer Reports did

a study on wrinkle creams and found that the more costly ones did not do any better than the cheaper ones. In fact, the one that had the best results sells for $19 while one of the worst sold for over $300 an ounce. The study showed that really none of the creams did much good.

You might not be surprised to hear that these wrinkle creams don’t do much good, and that’s not the point of me taking the time to post this. What is the point that hit me was they followed up by saying that Americans spend $1,000,000,000, yes, that’s ONE BILLION, a year on wrinkle creams. We are throwing our money into products that don’t do any good with the hope we will look younger. As the radio announcer said, “Growing old gracefully, priceless.”

As I think about a statistic like this, my mind thinks about what could have been done with that kind of money. For $1,000,000,000 we could feed and clothe a lot of orphans in Africa, we could support a lot of missionaries, we could get the gospel out to so many more. Instead we spend in on something that doesn’t even work, with the hope that it might make us look a year or two younger. That’s the American way.