The other day I was listening to one of my favourite songs (I have many of them) when it got me thinking. The song is There Will Be A Day by Jeremy Camp from his album Speaking Louder Than Before. The song talks about the fact that there will be a day when things like death, sorrow, pain and tears will be no more because they would have been defeated. But then at the end of the chorus it talks about how even as we wait for that day, we hold on to God always.
Job was the one that said that naked we came into the world and naked we leave it. We come into the world and people and circumstance try to shape the way we think. The world tells us that one of the secrets of happiness is the acquisition of things. Like I tweeted yesterday, I read a terrible article by the British comedian, Russell Brand in the UK Guardian where he blamed addictions and the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman on other people. I'll write about that some other time maybe but there was something in the article that caught my attention. He talked about how even the addiction men get themselves into can fill a void in the soul. I believe addictions cannot fill the void in men's souls because only God can fill it. But men like Russell Brand are too caught up in themselves that they do not consider that just maybe God can fill that void.
We can try to fill our lives with possessions, position and power but they'll always come up short. The fact is nothing can take God's place. The world tells us that we can only be happy when we make those things our lives pursuit. In other words, the world is happy if we are consumed by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Rather than possessions, fame and position, God wants a relationship with us. Then he wants to develop things like patience, love, joy and peace in our lives. He wants to develop our character so that we can stand up tall against the world and it wiles as it tries to conform us.
When we think of living for seventy years and we think that is a long period of time and maybe we wonder what we are going to do to fill those years. It's not and there's plenty to do. I don't know if it's because I'm growing older but I have begun to feel that time keeps moving faster. I can still remember when the year started now it's almost the middle of February. Anything we do with our time is something we are doing with our life. Anything you spend time doing, you are exchanging a portion of your life in pursuit of that thing. Rather than exchange our lives for inanimate things that will perish with this world, the best we can do is pursue and seek to exchange our lives for things that have eternal significance.
Job was the one that said that naked we came into the world and naked we leave it. We come into the world and people and circumstance try to shape the way we think. The world tells us that one of the secrets of happiness is the acquisition of things. Like I tweeted yesterday, I read a terrible article by the British comedian, Russell Brand in the UK Guardian where he blamed addictions and the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman on other people. I'll write about that some other time maybe but there was something in the article that caught my attention. He talked about how even the addiction men get themselves into can fill a void in the soul. I believe addictions cannot fill the void in men's souls because only God can fill it. But men like Russell Brand are too caught up in themselves that they do not consider that just maybe God can fill that void.
We can try to fill our lives with possessions, position and power but they'll always come up short. The fact is nothing can take God's place. The world tells us that we can only be happy when we make those things our lives pursuit. In other words, the world is happy if we are consumed by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Rather than possessions, fame and position, God wants a relationship with us. Then he wants to develop things like patience, love, joy and peace in our lives. He wants to develop our character so that we can stand up tall against the world and it wiles as it tries to conform us.
When we think of living for seventy years and we think that is a long period of time and maybe we wonder what we are going to do to fill those years. It's not and there's plenty to do. I don't know if it's because I'm growing older but I have begun to feel that time keeps moving faster. I can still remember when the year started now it's almost the middle of February. Anything we do with our time is something we are doing with our life. Anything you spend time doing, you are exchanging a portion of your life in pursuit of that thing. Rather than exchange our lives for inanimate things that will perish with this world, the best we can do is pursue and seek to exchange our lives for things that have eternal significance.
JC Cruz is the author of
DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers, http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/. You can
follow him on Twitter @Cruz_JCReal.
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