When you are a fan of rock music, you wear T-shirts of your favorite bands. I don’t know who decided this, but for years rockers have proudly sported threads of their musical heroes. In a way, our musical tastes represent a lot about who we are, and I remember the day I joined the trend.
I had never bought a band shirt over the Internet before and didn’t understand why they needed so much information from me. (“If you were trapped on a desert island with the choice of only one breakfast cereal…”) But I patiently filled in all the necessary blanks and placed my order. Then the waiting began.
In my excitement, I checked the mail box every single day! When the days stretched into weeks, I was ready to burst with anticipation. Just when I was beginning to worry that the post office had switched to wagon trains to save on gas money, it finally arrived.
I called a family meeting for the inaugural opening of the package, and excitedly ripped into it to reveal…a shirt sized XXXX Small. My shock turned to denial as I attempted to squeeze my teenage figure into the offensively tiny piece of doll clothing. My stubbornness almost forced me to keep it, until I realized there were probably bylaws prohibiting me from wearing such a scandalously small shirt in public. As my head and arms began to turn blue from lack of blood flow, I turned to my mom and sighed, “Mom, my life is just a series of disappointments!”
The world offers a lot of entertainment choices. Everywhere we turn we are being bombarded with movies, magazines, television, billboards, clothing and a host of other things aimed at entertaining us. In an environment such as this, we should be the happiest people in the world! But we aren’t.
All of these things, while they can serve a useful purpose in moderation, are ultimately temporary. No matter how much we enjoy our favorite TV show, the real world will inevitably come barging in to crash the party. Our world is not only one of entertainment overload; it is also filled with drugs, alcohol, depression, and suicide. In a country that offers pleasure on an overflowing buffet table, people are still not happy.
The more I think about this, the more I realize that temporary things produce temporary results. As much as I may love my X-box, my Christmas list is never empty year after year. In a world full of diversions and temporary gratification, I want something that is real. I want something that I won’t get bored of and lose interest in.
Thanks be to God that He offers that! Rather than giving us just another material possession to distract us from earthly pain, God gives us Himself. A greater gift could not be asked for, and with this gift, One size fits all.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23
Mike Blackaby is 25 years old and is the college and young adult pastor at First Baptist Church in Jonesboro, GA. Mike loves to play music, loves to snowboard, play hockey, and cheers for the Colorado Avalanche. He is terrified of spiders, but loves reading fantasy novels, watching movies, taking road trips, building camp fires, and will do any roller coaster if someone goes with him. You can contact him via Facebook.