Following up from my last blog (Killer Dreams) I just think I must be very blunt:
If you allow your focus to aim at and essentially demand your own fulfillment you’re likely to hit a brick wall. If you keep doing it, the damage will be extreme. Why?
I am as convinced as I could be that there is a God and He isn’t you or me. If He and others are not our focus, we take His place. It’s a practical reality and a pretense beyond all others.
If we refuse to face up to this- that “banana” we’re continually stretching our necks out to eat will effectively take His place. Well, INeffectively, but you get my point.
Whatever your target, if He’s not it I am convinced you (and I) miss every time. Telltale signs of this?
How about arriving at your destination and sensing a very real letdown once you were there for a while?
Another job, a different location. Change of boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife.
“If only [THIS…] THHHEEEENNNNN I’d be satisfied!”
“All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.” (Ecclesiasties 1.8) This was penned by an incredibly rich and wise individual who “went for it”, who “HAD IT ALL”.
Prior my own surrender to the true God I pretty well gave myself full-on to the search for fulfillment. At several points along the trail it all came together… I got exactly what I wanted. And it came up empty, much to my surprise. “It”, “she”, etc., did not make my life worth living for very long.
The fact was, my myopic self was slowly killing me.
“Yeah, well that’s YOU Glenn” right?! “NOT me buddy! I KNOW what’s going to make me happy!”
See, my take on things is that my personal sense of happiness is itself a moving target. My own emotions, feelings, even wants and desires have often been the cause of more negative, non-productive struggle in my own life and a source of pain to others as I acted out of my own frustration. Sound familiar?
Read that last paragraph again please. Then consider this: if there is a God and if that God indeed created you, made you, it is firstly for Himself in relationship. Secondly it’s for others, not merely for you to stare in the mirror self-focused much like the mythical Narcissus.
It’s about service, not bliss.
It’s about loving, not being loved.
It’s about others, not self.
Chasing ones own tail is exhausting. Expecting others to “jump through your hoops” in accord with your plan/s and desires is a lost cause because in the end, you are the center of your own universe and therefore your biggest problem regardless how others “perform” with regard to your own wishes.
Considering others “the enemy” because they don’t kiss up to you, your plans and your dreams is a disease plenty of us need to admit we either have or are in danger of catching.
Believe me, I’ve been there and in those moments over the years when I have gotten off track this is where I “left the rails”.
If you think about it you might say “Trains don’t have freedom of movement, they can only travel where the tracks are laid”. You’d be correct in that sense. Then again, a train off its track isn’t going anywhere. It’s stuck. It’s not where it was created to be, to travel, to serve. It carries no one. It has arrived at it’s non-moving destination. Rust and decay is it’s epitath.
Maybe this is yet another reason as a blues singer/player/writer I so relate to trains.
All this very much reminds me of a long-ago penned article in Cornerstone Magazine titled “The Failure of Success”. I did not write it but fully related to it’s points.
It also brings to mind a lyric I wrote and sang many years ago.
Golden Road
(From “Awaiting Your Reply”, Resurrection Band)
They told me about a golden road paved with dreams and fame
I though I’d try to walk it-get down and play the game
The treasures of the world kept comin’…all my dreams came true
But I didn’t realize the price I’d paid for the changes I’d gone through,
Changes I’d gone through
Clinging to the shape of a fantasy, rolling down the slope of desire
Most of the time spent pulling it out of the fire
I turned away from God and His love, and I worshipped myself
The idols that I’d built, all crumbled on my shelf,
They all crumbled on my shelf
But all along I realized
That if I had to…
If I had to choose
Between love an’ my own sweet lies
Love was bound to lose
Love was bound to lose
They told me about a broken road paved with death and shame
I though I’d try to find it…get away from playing the game
I finally realized the price He paid for changes I’ve gone though
I finally realized the price He paid for Changes I’ve gone though
Changes I’ve gone though
Straight up, the real, risen Jesus Christ has changed my life and perhaps larger than His freeing me from several intense addictions was and continues to be His deliverance to the worst of addictions, that being my addiction to -me-, to self, to chasing for fulfillment rather than seeking Him for Himself.
Serving God and others is my life and any time I play around with ultimate pursuits other than those I find waste, decay and something less than relationship with the only eternal Love there ever was, is or shall be.
His revealed will for us -best as we can discover and walk it out- is the ultimate priority in a world He created. He created you and I in this world in order to have fellowship with us, active and indeed, satisfying relationship for eternity.
Everything else is likely a distraction, often a temptation and perhaps saddest of all, a waste of one’s time and life.
God give you and I grace to keep the Main Person THE Main Person and pursuit!
As always, thanks for stopping by. -Glenn
glennkaiser.com 