Disappointing
August 31, 2010 (Tuesday)
About 15 years ago, our family car was stolen. Although the culprits were known to be a youth gang, and the police identified their neighborhood turf, nothing was done to apprehend them. A little bit of poetic justice came about when they stole some of the cassette tapes from a case inside the car. They didn’t take them all; they chose to take the ones that looked like music they would like. Among those stolen was a set of “The Mikado,” a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. While grieving over their loss to me, I couldn’t help smiling when I thought of the look on their faces when they realized what their stolen treasure really was. They probably thought it was a Rock band, but boy, were they surprised.
I’m sure they felt like Jacob did when he woke up after his first wedding night to discover that he had been tricked into marrying his sweetheart’s sister. Or maybe they felt like the guy who bought the book, “How to Hug,” and found out when he opened it at home that it was Volume 7 of an encyclopedia set. And the kid that swiped “The Naked City” from his family videos was disappointed when he found out it was a cop show about crime in a metropolitan area.
But the biggest disappointment of all when it comes to stolen pleasures is living your life without God. Satan promises all sorts of good things and lots of happiness, but when you grab for it, you discover his promises are like a carrot on a stick held in front of a race horse. His pleasures are like cotton candy – a mouthful of nothing. His promises are like mirages in the desert, promising precious help for your spiritual thirst, but disappearing as you near it.
Saul of Tarsus awakened from his self-centered dream of wealth and power and came to life in Christ. As he neared life’s end as the Apostle Paul, he gladly and thankfully wrote, “To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain!” There’s no disappointment in Jesus.