Re-Morse

My wife and I were, recently, enjoying unhealthy pastries and coffee at a local establishment near our home.  This was a rare opportunity for the two of us to get away without children.  On this particular day, we dropped all four children off to school, and we went out for a short, forty-five minute date.  Though the pastries were delicious…it was difficult to enjoy ourselves.  Two tables away, sat another couple…one of which I am convinced must have been the great, great, great, great, great grand-daughter of Samuel Morse himself.  The fingernails on her right hand were clicking the table top faster than a tap dancer, after a weeklong binge of gummy bears, chased down with Pikes blend from Starbucks. 

I don’t know that it would have done any good…but I really wanted to say something to get her to stop.  I felt like I was about to lose my mind!  I know it sounds extreme…but you were not there!! It was insanity…and I could feel the insanity creeping into my very being.  We left.  I had to get out of there, before I did something that would have left me with a lifetime of re-“Morse”…pun intended.

We all have done things that we regret.  Perhaps, you have purchased a vehicle that turned out to be a lemon.  Perhaps, you have bought a house, only to find out that it has been rotting under your nose for the last decade.  Perhaps, you struck your siblings with the dead bones of animals…oh wait…I was talking about things I regret.

It is difficult to find contentment in our culture.  There exists, a pressure, around us at all times, attempting to convince us that we “need” this or that to make us happy…or content.  Yet, after we fall for these deceptions, we can find ourselves in a deeper sense of despair than before the purchase was made.

I remember in college I bought a $2 scratch ticket.  I lost.  I bought another $2 scratch ticket…lost again.  $20 later…I cannot express the deep remorse I was experiencing…$20 could have filled my car twice in 1994.  I guess I won’t be eating lunch for the next week. 

I think we get confused as to what we really need.  Sure, we need food and water, or we will die.  We need shelter, or we will freeze in the Minnesota winters.  However, I think, we look at our “needs” as those things that will make us “comfortable.”  Sure, we need food to live…but how many of us would be content with peanut butter sandwiches for the rest of our lives.  Yet, we would have what we need.  Instead…we “need” steak. 

Sometimes I think we look to Jesus to give us the “comforts” we desire…rather than what we REALLY need…HIM.  In the Gospels, we see Jesus heal MANY people.  Have you ever asked yourself, “Why does Jesus heal people?”  I don’t think He heals them just to make them “comfortable.”  I believe that Jesus heals people…to point people back to Himself, so that more people will believe in Him.  All that Jesus does, or doesn’t do, is intended to point back to Him…to lead people into a deeper relationship with Him.  It’s all about Him…and all we need is...Him.