A Better Pleasure

There's just no way around this. I'm going to sound like an old fuddy duddy by the time I'm done. I can't help it. But perhaps this is an ecclesiastical moment for me.

There is too much. No matter how we slice it, we have too much. We have outsmarted ourselves. We have begun to equate suffering with stupidity, when, in fact, its the other way around. Only suckers suffer, after all. Only the lazy and indigent and sinners and those unfortunate stupid people who don't know any better suffer. If you suffer, its probably because you weren't paying attention.

Bored? We have four hundred channels of TV for you, On-Demand Cable, Youtube, movies on DVD, radio, satellite radio, ipods, any form of entertainment you can imagine right at your finger tips. Hungry? Fast food on every corner. Thirsty? Starbucks everywhere that soda vending machines are not. You don't even need to look for a water fountain anymore because we have bottled water for you. In pain? We've got a medicine for that or a cure or we're spending billions of dollars on research to find a cure. Unhappy? There's a book answer for what ails you... or drink... or drugs. Lonely? We've got the answer for that online. And if you don't have time for meeting people or dating? We've got speed dating. We've got e-mails that take 30 seconds to write. Or text-messaging that takes 30 seconds to write. Or, heck, just call them whereever they are on their cell phone. There is absolutely no reason to suffer, whatsoever. No reason to wait. No reason to be hungry. No reason to not have anything you desire. If you want it, technology will provide it for you. Who needs religion anymore? It is an outmoded form of thinking. We stopped needing God when we discovered that we could talk to people on the other side of the planet by pressing a button. We can kill those people too in much the same way. Who needs God for anything? If I'm down now, technology will pick me up.

Anything God does to try and temper us, to try and refine us, we can counteract with some sort of man made invention. We have become bloated. We have become complacent. We have become defiant.

We don't mean to be. We don't mean to seek human answers for human problems. That is just our nature. And even though the human answers don't quite satisfy, there is some relief from our suffering - some temporary respite. We get used to the pain. We get used to the isolation. We get used to telling ourselves that we are happy.

But we're not happy. We're not free from worry. And the more that we have, the less happy we are.

But there is a pleasure that can only be found on the other side of pain. There is a pleasure of sacrifice. There is a pleasure of discipline. There is a pleasure of hard work and struggle. There is a pleasure in valleys that can only be experienced by visiting them, and coming out on the other side.

Submitting to God, choosing that path, means that you must walk through His valleys before you can climb to His peaks. You must submit unto death. You must die to become alive.

Death is the end of all things worldy. Resurrection is the inheritance of all things of true substance. There is a better pleasure out there than anything we have here - but it can only be found on the other side of death. We must die to this world and be reborn in Him if we are ever to obtain our true inheritance.

I am afraid to die... because I am afraid to live.