I was just giving one of our receptionists a minute to go to the loo.
I am not a gifted receptionist.
I'm actually rubbish at it.
But in the five minutes (it was longer but I don't want to embarrass the receptionist!) I was sitting at reception? A girl in her late twenties came in and just started talking.
The essence of what she was saying was said with a pace and a hyperactivity that was breathless in its delivery.
She started with a statement.
"The world is just not enough!"
I thought she was going to talk about the James Bond movie.
But she continued.
"I'm sick of striving to achieve, to keep up with the Jones, to buy bigger, better and more, and to keep up with the latest iPhones! Im sick of always wanting more from the world. I'm sick of it!"
I said?
OK!
That was the sum total of my experienced and considered reply!
I'm such a brilliant pastor!
And an even better receptionist!
Not!
But it's weird because she was speaking out something that had been on my mind for a while.
A super fast thought had popped in my head just the other day that hasn't kind of left me.
But I was finding it hard to make sense of it.
It was this.
"The world can never satisfy the world."
So since then God has rolled that thought out in the everyday life that I lead. He has rolled it out like a silent movie flashing before my eyes.
It started with a scripture my wife Dawn gave me, after I'd shared with her about the thought that had hit me.
1 John 2: 15-17
15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father[a] is not in them. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
I spend most days amongst people who have nothing.
Materially they have absolutely nothing.
People who spend there lives grasping at the world to provide the alcohol or narcotics they need to keep the DTs away or even keep them alive. People who everyday of there lives run a race of survival that is tiresome in its out working.
Even they are looking to the world for to provide that stuff.
So many people look to the world to provide contentment and scientific answers or material satisfaction to what life is all about.
I met a guy the other day who is so far in debt because he had bought a "prestige" car with money he didn't have, just to feel successful and fit in with the what the world says.
To fast track the story.
His wife had left him because he couldn't pay the debt.
He was so devastated, he turned to the worlds other suggestion that he should drink to numb the pain.
He lost his job.
He lost his dignity.
He ended up sleeping in a cold doorway with the ultimate worldly prize?
Nothingness.
I had my arm around him praying words of comfort over his life.
I was flipping mad with the world I can tell you.
It tells lies, offers false hope and can come as an angel of light to many.
The world can never satisfy the world.
Never.
So here is the thing for anyone who feels this is resonating with them.
Don't listen to the world whispering its pseudo promises of more more more.
There is another way.
Another voice.
A true hope.
A reality.
This morning as I picked up the mail at S21 there was a brown envelope.
Marked Gary and Dawn.
I opened it and two sheets of crisp white paper fell out, along with a freshly folded picture cut outbid a news paper.
The meticulously written letter was a message of encouragement from someone who had been ministered to at s21 by one of our team.
The picture was a great one. (I include it at the bottom of this post)
It was of Felix Baumgartner of parachuting from space to earth fame, before he jumped from Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio De Janeiro.
But as I looked at this picture, I saw a man in the hand of Jesus.
And in that one glance at this picture, my first thought was there is no place I would rather be.
Than being held by the hand of Jesus.
Someone facebooked me last night.
And asked me a very direct question.
"How do you know when you have been called."
As I pondered my reply.
I could only answer something like this.
"Because I was sick of the way my life was heading. I was wandering aimlessly down the road to nowhere. I was sick of striving to be liked, to fit in, to be popular, to get everything that I could that the world was seeming to offer me. The more I had the more I felt empty. I had a massive desire to help people and make a difference in the world, but I couldn't because I was of the world. And in all of that came what I know was a call to a different path.
The world can't satisfy the world.
"If anyone is in the world, the father is not in them."
Ouch.
"The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever."
It's true.
What the world offers will jog on eventually.
It'll just disappear.
But whoever puts themselves in the will of God?
Puts ourselves into His purpose.
Puts ourselves into His hand.
Will really live.
Live now.
Live to the maximum.
Experience truly life changing transformation.
Live forever.
The world is not enough.
The girl was right.
But God is more than enough.
Believe me.
Take a look at the pic below. Allow God a moment to speak to you.
Blessings.
