Chocolate cake. Fresh Maine lobster. A spa treatment. A winning lottery ticket. Fame. Everyone has desires, earthly wants that will go unfulfilled. Even the richest people, or those who put aside all restraint to their behavior, end up with wants and desires that can’t be completely filled here on earth. That is because all earthly desires have more desire than fulfillment. We always seem to want more, no matter how much we have enjoyed.
A couple of examples might help solidify this thought. Larry Flynt, the famous Hustler Magazine founder, allowed no restraint to his sexual drives. And yet in his later years it was rumored that he didn’t gain any pleasure from his sexual exploits. The pleasure had worn off. No matter what he tried, it just didn’t satisfy. Recent studies of the super rich, those with more than $25 million or more in net worth, show that in most areas of their life they are still unsatisfied. They worry about the same things we do. They even worry that they don’t have enough money to be secure!
Have you seen a car driving down the highway with one of those small spare tires? They are designed for temporary use. They aren’t designed for highway driving or for anything other than getting from the place where the flat tire happened to the tire store. So when they blow out or go flat, you are really stuck. No spare tire! You can tell it is a bit unsafe as the car leans. They seem off balance.
Duct tape is a wonderful invention for creating temporary fixes. But when you try to solve a problem permanently with duct tape, you soon learn its shortcomings. Sandbags hold back a river at flood stage temporarily, but if you try to use them as a permanent levy, they fail with catastrophic consequences. Plastic stretched over a broken car window works for a day or two, but then fails. The same goes for a tarp over a hole in a roof and for a broken taillight. These temporary fixes just don’t last.
To bring up an old illustration, the things that people stuff into the Jesus shaped hole in their soul just won’t satisfy. No matter how much we stuff in, there are still gaps and shortcomings. The things of this world can’t fulfill our eternal longings. That is because the desires of this world, our earthly longing, are temporary. They will end when this life ends. And because they are temporary they aren’t meant to last.
There is one thing that spans both time and eternity. When we are obedient to the LORD’s will, we span the great divide of death. Obedience is the currency of a relationship with the LORD. And when we deal in that currency now, we are making deposits in eternity. The temporary will give way to the eternal. And we can be part of that eternal now.
We begin the journey of eternity by saying “no” to our temporary pleasures and “yes” to eternal priorities. We begin to partake in eternity as we do the will of God. His life flows through us to reach this world with the message of hope. We become workers together with Him.
The Arnold Journey 