Life is full of pleasures, but temporary ones. As I was mowing my grandpa's yard this afternoon (something I look forward to weekly), I finally hit that point of the summer when I began to feel the excitement of a freshly cut lawn fade. If you know me, you know that whenever Spring arrives, I get an itch and the only cure is yard work. What I love about mowing is: a good mower, sharp blade, the smell of gas, the sound of the weed-eater, the feel of rocks slapping your skin as you cut a clean edge (for some reason I really do) and the opportunity to just be alone and think.
So, today as I was thinking about my fading joy of mowing, I began to dig at the root of that thought. And what I found, was that all pleasure outside of Christ is unfulfilling and temporary. How often are we looking forward to what is next? I know I always do and I am always disappointed because it never fully satisfies.
As a family, my parents took us to Washington state last month and I tell you what, I had been looking forward to that trip since the beginning of February. August finally came around. When we arrived, I was amazed, I had never seen so much green in one place, it was majestic. I had never been surrounded by such creation in my entire life (check Alex's facebook for pictures). I love the mountains, the waterfalls, the snow capped peaks, green meadows, glacier lakes, wildlife, hiking, etc. But, after being there several days, I began to grow numb to this beauty, the majesty of the mountains began to look normal/ even mundane (which it truly was not). On some of our hikes I would get lose in my thoughts about what is after this vacation, instead of living in the moment. I hated that feeling.
We see this in every stage of life. I can't wait till high school, college, first job, marriage, more money, house, new job, kids, etc. We are always looking forward to the next stage of life. We find pleasure in the next and not the now. We want something more. We try to fill this void in our hearts with worldly pleasures, as if they would sustain us. Alcoholics want more and more alcohol, potheads want more and more, millionaires want to be billionaires, and on and on it goes.
This tragedy can even take place in our walks with Christ. We tend to think that we have experienced all that He has to offer. The mountain top experience was nice, but is that it? We have nailed down our moral checklist, what else is left?
But, WAIT, in Christ there is more......and it sustains. There is One who can fulfill, He is the Sustainer of life, the Creator, Savior, the Prince of Peace. Have you truly meditated on all the attributes of God and become satisfied? A.W Tozer says that "God being infinite, must possess attributes about which we can know nothing" Frederick Faber says that He is a "God of a thousand attributes". What does that mean? We will always have a new attribute of God that we can ascribe to His name and worship Him for. No matter what our Christian maturity level may be, we will never be able to study all of God's attributes, we will never find the mystery of God mundane. He is far more miraculous, glorious, and mysterious than we can imagine. This relationship cannot become dull and mundane. How does Christs work on the cross become ordinary? For we were dead in our sin and trespasses and Christ took them, not holding them against us, and died upon the cross. And what happened next?.....He rose....we rose. We were dead but now we are alive, we were blind but now we see, Christ is alive and we are alive in Christ.
We cannot be a people who seek the pleasures of this world, BUT a people who are fully satisfied in Christ. These were just some of my mowing thoughts.
