A friend of mine just recently made the statement, that after feeling worn thin and stressed out by life she wondered where was the “real” life she dreamed of as a child? And it got me thinking of a lot of different things I’ve had going on in the back of my head for awhile.
It is easy to say that our society is messed up, any person who has grown up in church knows the whole story of how in the beginning, we on earth had it good. We had a loving, providential God that loved us enough to give us the “ability” to make choices for ourselves in giving us “free will”. Now, the idiot “enemy” is all too familiar with this concept of free will and will, although unknowingly to us, use it against us. He saw Eve and played the “but you could have so much more” card on her and continued to convince her to eat the fruit God had specifically said not to and BOOM, similar to what you witness on game shows and television programs all the time, we as well as Eve, end up being unsatisfied with what we have and give into greediness. She had it perfect, but the enemy knew our human nature weakness and skillfully used it against Eve. The perfect world and opportunity we had was gone. We lost it all by listening to the enemy and somehow thinking we knew better then God.
So, if that was so far back when life was most likely, much less cluttered and less complicated, imagine the state of the world we live in now? Families upon families reaching, stretching, sacrificing and whole heartedly pursuing that illusive and coveted “American Dream”. This isn’t some
controversial topic. Americans and probably even more so those living outside America, strive to someday finally achieve whatever the American society determines is the ultimate form of success and will give almost anything to have it.
So my next question is, “What is considered success?” It’s beyond obvious the aspects that media and television view as marks of success. And, I’m not saying those things are wrong necessarily. I believe when contemplating this subject you have to find a realistic balance. You don’t go to one extreme or the other. But, really, as a Believer, in our present day society what should we consider “success” and how do we pursue it correctly? I know I could dig deep down into the Scriptures and find verse upon verse giving statements of resisting materialistic things and choosing the narrow path and all the contrasts between pursuing God’s Kingdom compared to the pleasures of this world. But there is another way I recently started to look at it.
Recently on CBN they were doing a week long special interviewing people who died, experienced heaven and then came back to earth. I’m a visual person, and as they described it in my mind’s eye I could envision all of it, I could FEEL and imagine it, and I wanted to BE there. As they describe it more and more my heart fills to the brim and I just think of how I can’t wait! But in each interview the person states that after experiencing what heaven is like, THEN coming back here to their earthly home, their view point on matters here on earth drastically change. They’ve seen what lies beyond our temporary home. I thought, “Man, if only all of us could be able to go through an experience like that, we would, no doubt, see things through a different light. If we had that personal experience it could change forever what we make a priority in our lives.” And then I realized that Jesus Himself could be considered One of those who has experienced both places, He knows both sides. And knowing that there was another place more glorious then our minds could even attempt to conceive, how then, did He live His life while He was here on earth? What did He pursue and what did He consider to be “successful”?
Could it be that our definition of success and God’s definition of success are two very different things? Could it be true that, despite living in a greedy, materialistic, selfish world God views a “real” life and real success as the concept He spoke of in the Sermon on the Mount? Uh, cause if that’s the case, those two seem starkly different from one another??
And, unfortunately, I believe pursuing the “American Dream” has gotten so out of hand that, just like naive Eve, we, as Believers have fallen for and are so accustomed to following the crowd, that we assume it’s normal and to be expected, and mindlessly follow the society norm. And the concept of just trying to be “normal” has become such a huge chore that the enemy doesn’t need to use anything else but the expected pressure of society to distract and prevent us from being a more impacting, effective Believer.
As you can see I have many questions and I am certainly not saying that I have any answers, but there are some things that I feel I DO know. I know, that no matter the situation, God does NOT want us to be dismayed or stressed. He did a whole lot for us in order that, at the least, we would not be have to carry unnecessary burdens, and if you ask me, pursuing the “American Dream” can end up being a very stressful and exhausting task that can take a very serious toll on us. That, along side contemplating the way Jesus, Himself spent His little time He had here on the earth, it makes me wonder if maybe the “real” life that we, as Americans have become accustomed to expecting, isn’t the same “real” life God would wish for us to experience? If this is the case, then how do we as American Believer’s live???
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