Move From Thing to Thing

Yesterday's post ended with how can you slow down and see your need for Jesus. There are several answers and one can begin to quote Henri Nouwen or Dallas Willard at this point about solitude and spiritual disciplines. Prior to slowing down enough and naming your brokenness and seeing your need for Jesus you must wrestle with how we are ignoring are need for him. This quote from The Unkown God by Alistar McGrath speaks truth about are pervasive culture and how we have bought this lie of the good life as well. The ( ) and italics are mind added for emphasis.

"If there is something that has the power to fulfill truly and deeply, then for many it is something unknown, hidden in mystery and secrecy. We move from one thing and place to another, lingering only long enough to discover that it is not what we were hoping for before renewing our quest for fulfillment. The great certainty of our time seems to be that satisfaction is nowhere to be found. We roam around, searching without finding, yearning without being satisfied. The pursuit of happiness (the good life) is often said to be one of the most fundamental rights. Yet this happiness proves astonishingly elusive. So often, those who actively pursue happiness (the good life) find that it slips through their fingers. It is an ideal which is easily put into words, yet it seems to remain beyond our reach. We have long become used to the fact that the richest people in this world are often the most miserable, yet fail to see the irony of this. Perhaps it is just one of the sad paradoxes of being human. Maybe we will have to get used to the fact that we are always going to fail in our search for happiness (the good life). Part of the cruel irony of human existence seems to be that the things we thought would make us happy fail to do so."

For me personally I desire a vintage (or even new, but that is way to expensive) Land Cruiser and look foolishly for one thinking it makes for a great story, adventure, or a tough man. I know this will not fulfill me, but I have not wrestled with it and released it over to God.

What is that thing that you have come to believe at this season of your life that provides happiness or the good life?