Sensual Lure

I was watching a T.V. commercial and an older man was kissing his wife and the commercial said he was doing so without mistletoe. At the end it said that you don’t really need anything for you have all you want. A happy family with children all around and a Christmas tree shining in the back ground. I can identify with that for I don’t need mistletoe to kiss my wife for I like to do it often. I can’t think of anything that would make me any happier than spending time with my family. Some how if we are not careful we’ll get caught up in the bigger and better thinking it will make us happier; it won’t and we have a record that it doesn’t. We live in a day when man never earns enough. A woman is never beautiful enough. Gadgets are never modern enough. Houses are never furnished enough. Food is never fancy enough. Relationships are never romantic enough. Life is never full enough. So if you had the money what would you do and how do you think you would act? In other words how would it change you? There once lived a man who had the time, the money, and the energy to take such a journey. Not a mind trip, not across the imaginary back roads of his memory but into life itself. He was free to walk and because no one was able to restrain him his name was Solomon and he has left us a journal. His journal covers what only most dream of. In his journal he gives us the details of what happened and the results and leaves us with the message “don’t waste your time; it will not satisfy!” We can find his journal in a book called Ecclesiastes. I must tell you that the journey this man took was mind-boggling and left him Defeated, Depressed, and Disillusioned. Only one word is needed to explain his journey “Empty.” He also leaves us his motto on the front page of his journal;  

Ecclesiastes 1:1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

Ecclesiastes 1:2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. That is the way Solomon described how he felt before he took his journey, while he endured his journey, and after the journey was over. Nothing satisfied. Not so fast Solomon; I want to know what made your journey a pointless and empty one? You were King and had an endless supply of resources and you are telling us that nothing you did had any purpose! How could you make such a statement?  Solomon uses a phrase 27 times that tells us why nothing he had or did satisfied; it’s the phrase “Under the sun.”  Life is drab and depressing, hopeless, meaningless simply because he left God out of the picture. Laughter, comedy routines, booze, sex, entertainment, ego building projects, art collections, fun trips, serious work, and a half dozen other attempts at happiness and all of them blew up in his face.

Ecclesiastes 2:11 Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, (accomplished) and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity (emptiness) and vexation (pointless) of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 2:17 Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity (empty) and vexation (pointless) of spirit.

Ecclesiastes 2:18 Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me. (Leave it to the person who replaces me.)

Do you want real meaning, purpose, an investment that will give lasting dividends? Solomon says wake up and wise up I can tell you before you get started it won’t satisfy.

1-      The sensual lure of something better tomorrow robs us of the joys offered today.

2-     The personal temptation to escape is always stronger than the realization of it consequences.

3-     The final destination, if God is absent from the scene, will not satisfy.  

The Good life, the one that truly satisfies exists only when we stop wanting a better one. When we realize satisfaction comes when we step off the escalator of desire and say, this is enough. What I have will do. What I make of it is up to me and the relationship with my Lord is vital. It did take a commercial to show me or tell me that we just need to be happy where the Lord has us and what He has entrusted us with.