The first time I saw it, I was appalled! 

A mom was pushing her son in a shopping cart and the little whiner was pointing to a big bag of bar-b-q potato chips on the shelf. With sheer delight the mom grabbed a fresh bag, opened it, and then handed it to the young child sitting in the front seat of the cart so he could eat to his heart’s content.

“Chomp, chomp, chomp!”

This seemed terribly wrong to me on so many levels: (1) They didn’t pay for the chips yet so technically this was stealing. (2) The mom was not helping teach her boy “delayed gratification” – that patience is a virtue – but rather this mother was the one encouraging her son to give into his immediate desires. (3) It was later in the day and I was always taught that you needed to refrain from afternoon snacking because it would “spoil your appetite” for the healthy dinner that was to be served later.

The sad part of this whole scenario is this lack of restraint is becoming a common practice not just with kids, but adults are now opening food and snacks while they shop without giving it a second thought. “Mmmm, look, a bag of powered donuts, I will just grab a few while I finish the rest of my shopping list.” I even saw a man snacth a greasy piece of fried chicken from a box he picked up at the delli counter, licking his fingers while buying motor oil in aisle 5.

“Consume, consume, consume.”

We have become like the herd of cows that live down the road from me. I decided to go observe what they did in a day, so I leaned against the fence and watched. It was quite exciting, they stand around and eat just like the kid in the shopping cart, “Chomp, chomp, chomp!” I was talking to a farmer who works with Holstein cows and I asked him what else they did besides eat grass. He took a few minutes to think, spit out a wad of chew, and then said, “Well, after a few years, we slaughter them.”

Eat and die. Not much of a life.

That got me thinking; isn’t that all we are good for as humans? Eat and die. If you were to ask people, I think they would add one more element of living: Eat, have fun, and die. The “have fun” part of life seems to be the only thing people want to do these days. The kid wanted the bag of chips now, not because of hunger pangs, but because of pleasure.  Oh sure, we color this desire with fancy terms like “personal freedom” and “pursuit of happiness”, but after all is said and done, we are no different than cows.

For the Christian, we have been told that there is more to life than mere consumerism. The official statement is “to worship God and enjoy him forever.” Sermon after sermon you will hear that we have been created to “Glorify God,” to “Worship him in Spirit and in Truth,” and to “Know him, the only true God, and Jesus Christ who he has sent.” This is all well and good, but do most Christians live like this? Do they even believe this? From my findings I think we have fallowed the pattern of the grazing cow and the kid in the shopping cart, we believe we have been made to consume. And when we immediately grab that bag of “fun” it naturally causes us to forget that there is more.

For the most part, our pursuit of happiness has spoiled our “moral appetite.”

The famous Christian thinker, Blaise Pascal, believed one of the main problems with mankind, and Christians for that matter, is our constant pursuit of distraction. Here is how he put it, “The only good thing for men therefore is to be diverted from thinking of what they are, either by some occupation which takes their minds off it, or by some novel and agreeable passion which keeps them busy, like gambling, hunting, some absorbing show, in short by what is called diversion.”

He adds, “That is why men are so fond of hustle and bustle; that is why prison is such a fearful punishment; that is why the pleasures of solitude are so incomprehensible. That, in fact, is the main joy of being a king, because people are continually trying to divert him and provide him every kind of pleasure. A king is surrounded by people whose only thought is to divert him and stop him thinking about himself, because, king though he is, he becomes unhappy as soon as he thinks about himself.”

Notice a few things, people pursue fun and the accumlation of “stuff” not just because they are consumers, but because they “want to be diverted from thinking what they are.” Our appetites are spoiled not because we can’t say no, it is because we don’t want to think about the bigger things, the more eternal things.

My “Series 60” theory about why people are so addicted to sports, is because it costs a person nothing to be a fan. As a fan I am not the one in the battle getting dirty and hurt, the players I root for are. As a fan winning or losing is a rather meaningless reality. If your team wins, what do you gain? Bragging rights? What are bragging rights? It is nothing but a chance for me to say I won. Won what? You really did noghting, and ultimately, who cares? The person whose team lost will only ignore you, and even despise you. 

But it is fun! See, there it is again, fun.

But what if I bet some money on it? Again, it doesn’t matter because that money is just a distraction just like pursuing fun. Once again, the real issues of life are pushed away by the pursuit just like Pascal said. I have found the busier I become the less time I have to meet with God and really wonder.

It reminds me of the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19:11-14..

The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a still small voice.” 

The presence of God is not found in the fury, but in the quiet. I think that is what people miss in all their consuming and pleasure seeking diversions. Netflix, ESPN, swing dancing, Avatar on the big screen, Candy Crush, sports tournaments, softball games, hunting season, fishing season, turkey season, bow season, rifle season, comic-con, Air Supply concerts, and even another two hours spent flexing at Planet Fitness. All of these are diversions stopping us from asking the questions of “what” and “why” we are.

I was by the hospital bedside of a dying friend yesterday. He was hooked up to every imaginable monitor, feeding and breathing tube, and his body was spent. He has been fighting for survival for a long, long time. In our discussion and prayer, I asked him what he would want communicated at his memorial service. He thought for a second, and then said there is one thing, “Purpose, tell people they have purpose.” And then he reached for his phone and looked up a Bible verse:

“Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:16)

We were designed for something more then eating chips! So find it because time is running out!