Our economy is driven by keeping the average person discontent. Marketers and advertisers are tasked with creating in us a dissastifaction for what we have, or at the very least, a nagging desire for what we do not need.
There are so many things that I want. I have longings that I could have sworn were there since the day I was born, and now simply piqued as I am validated by the purchases of others around me and as 'reasonable' prices dangle before me.
The sad truth is that much of these desires were put there by someone else. A stranger that has no idea who I am and sees me only as a contributor to their agenda. I feel violated just thinking about it. The genius is that the world that surrounds us crams these yearnings so deep into our hearts and minds that we think we came up with them ourselves.
How many of us have pursued things that we think might bring freedom only to have become enslaved by them? We have not only bought into the propaganda, we sponsor it from the deepest places within us.
In my moments of clarity, there is no price tag to what truly brings freedom. Beneath the layers of the things that we are told we want, there are even deeper passions in the fabric of our being, deposited by our Maker. Passions that we have spent our lives ignoring because they seemed too wonderful to ever be fulfilled. A burning in our souls that almost demands genuine love, meaning, and destiny to truly live this life as it was intended. I am discovering all of this in Jesus.
May we not settle for lesser desires. May we discover our God-given passions and a life worth living.
I once heard Erwin McManus talk about how he was speaking at a seminary and they introduced him as Dr. Erwin even though he didn't have a degree. He felt that it was because the religious leaders could not tolerate having a less educated person teaching them about the ways of God.
It appears that Erwin has started his own Doctoral program sponsored by Bethel Seminary. It's a 3-year program on “Creating an Entrepreneurial Ethos, Developing the Art of Improvisation, and Discipling Innovation”. What else would you expect? Besides the personal mentoring, it also involves publishing a book as a cohort. Even more interesting, in the prospectus is Erwin's list of resources and emerging churches that participants are to research.
Better get in before it becomes institutionalized.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Funny, I've been thinking about the same thing lately. How many of my needs are truly valid, how many of my wants are bound to bring more grief then joy and what am I missing out on trying to achieve these things and at the same time being a horrible steward of the time God has given me.
Nice blog by the way..
cheers.
P.
Don't stop what you're doing. Your words are a gift. You have something special here. God Bless.
Yup. Your words & your mind are a gift. God will bless many through them.
We are constantly at war with the ways of the world, from defining our identity (who we should be), our looks (how we should look), to our desires (what we should want), etc. Rom 12:2 should be a daily practice.
Thanks for a great critical analysis.
Media and Culture. It says in Ephesians: "for our battle is not aganst flesh and blood but the aganst the prince and principalities of this world."
There's a Christian program named: Listen Up by Lorna Dueck who is a writer for GlobeandMail. She writes about how media affects culture. Something worth listening about:
http://www.listenuptv.com/home.shtml
Post a Comment