One would think that after all the Black Friday’s we’ve lived through, people would learn that material things do not satisfy.
But if we ourselves are nothing but matter, live life without purpose, and will one day just cease to exist, then we have nothing to hold on to but matter. For according to this materialistic/naturalistic worldview, there is nothing but matter.
And so we race to the stores, race online, race to find the best deals, race to own the better, the bigger, take it all home, enjoy it for a while and then… Well it all fades away and we go shopping for more!
As Dr. Maher Samuel succinctly puts it, “Our enamorment with material things ends as soon as we own them and our enamorment with people is inversely correlated with the depth of our knowledge of them. Therefore, we need a relationship with He who is immaterial and not a mere person.”
King Solomon can probably be considered one of the richest people in history. He was also one of the wisest. He looked around and declared, “I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind” (Ecc. 1:14).
So why keep chasing after the wind and beating the air, as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians? Let us not run aimlessly but rather discipline ourselves to receive an imperishable crown (1 Cor. 9:25-27).
For we were designed by an imperishable Creator for an imperishable destiny with imperishable characters that we would be wise to invest in.
I’ll close with C.S. Lewis’ poignant words, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
Neither the bigger nor the better will satisfy. Only the Best will.