The World (a supplement to Something Called History)

The world has a way of instilling into people what they "ought" to believe, what they "ought" to think is important, and what they "ought" to think gives their life meaning. We have the dollar, clothes and cars, sex, alcohol and worse- praise for indulging or adhering to the ways of the world. All of these things, though pleasurable, are merely temporal pleasures. They are here one day and gone the next. We as humans NEED that sense of fulfillment in life, a sense of purpose. We create "fixes" to our desire for meaning, hope, and worse- addictions. In the same way that a drug addict needs that "fix" to keep himself going, so too do we engage in these things of the world that our culture has made us to believe are important, right, fulfilling and what we "ought" to do.

But there will never be fulfillment in these things. All that you have had, your house, your car, the expensive restaurant that you dined at with your co-workers, the wonderful drinks that make you feel so warm and fuzzy not worrying about the things of the world, could all be gone tomorrow and what then would you have? All these things that we have been convinced that have meaning and real importance since birth, have ended up owning us (thanks Brad Pitt, lol). A good way to think of it would be to remember Hurricane Katrina. It was a culture that had it all and then it was taken all away. All of the temporal pleasures slipped away and all that was left was the lives of the survivors.

This tells us something important, that fulfillment must come on a deeper level than the physical. You cannot fill a glass by surrounding it with other things or by letting it go afloat upon a great body of water. You must fill it from the INSIDE (wow my metaphors suck lol).

Everything that we know about life has been shown to us by our culture: what we should do as teenagers, what we should eat and what we should buy, but I tell you, the world has a way of making people slaves to it. You know this, I know this, we all do, but it is the extension of that truth into the real world that will help us to overcome this "fix" that never fulfills. Just like with any fix, you always have to go back for more.

In Christ,

Stephen