Consume Me

“Even if you live a long time, don't take a single day for granted. Take delight in each light-filled hour, remembering that there will also be many dark days and that most of what comes your way is smoke.” Ecclesiastes 11:8 {MSG}

When I was younger my mom, with her motherly prophetic wisdom, told me that I would become a poor, fat, well dressed, Latino when I grew older. I knew that my mom wasn’t saying that I needed to go on a diet or that she enjoyed my excellent fashion sense; although I’m like the Picasso of fashion if I don’t say so myself. My mom recognized that I seemed to spend the majority of the money I earned on clothes and/or eating out. I recognized that I needed to have a new outfit every few weeks and that left-overs, frozen dinners, or cold-cut sandwiches were not as good as Garcia’s, McDonald’s, or a large pepperoni pizza from Pallano’s.

In approximately 72 days, 14 hours, and 22 seconds and in a not so awesome fashion I will celebrate my 30th birthday. Accomplishing all that my mom said and more and in only 12 years. Don’t get it twisted this is not a call for pity but for an awakening.

This week I’ve felt overwhelmingly convicted by the way I’ve consumed life and taken so much for granted. And it all started last Sunday night when my family and I visited my home church for an evening of worship and fellowship with some of the best buddies a guy could have (really these guys are my heroes). One of my buddies had the opportunity to preach that evening and as he spoke God began working on my heart. My buddy began calling our attention to the national pastors in China that rip pages out Bibles only to later lock themselves in a room so they can memorize every word on the front and back of that page. These pastors in turn teach their underground churches from what they memorized. It’s illegal to own a Bible in their country and in our country many Christians own multiple Bibles and neglect to read one of them.

On Sunday night I began to realize I’ve taken God for granted and as the week has progressed God has shown me the other areas of my life that have received the same mistreatment.

In the above verse Solomon addresses a younger generation that consumes life failing to see the beauty of today. We, as a nation, desire the opportunity to pursue every pleasure life has to offer. However, there is a warning, if we follow our desires, we must be assured that God will call us into judgment. On this topic Matthew Henry exclaims, “How many give loose to every appetite, and rush into every vicious pleasure!” If we want to avoid regret, if we would rather have hope and comfort, if we rather escape misery now and later, we must remember the vanity of our pleasures.

Solomon would condemn my pattern for consuming life and failing to cherish the beauty of the day as sinful. He realized that God’s object is to draw us to purer and more lasting pleasure. I can honestly tell you that this is not what I have been pursuing the last decade of my life but it will be the pursuit of all my future days. Will you join me?

“If the young would live a life of true happiness, if they would secure happiness hereafter, let them remember their Creator in the days of their youth.” – Matthew Henry