(Please pick your head up off of your desk or laptop keyboard so you can read the rest of my post.)
(Thank you.)
Goldilocks was on a walk through the forest for reasons known only to herself (I really don't think she even knew, you know how women are), but it soon became an impromptu quest for perfection. I think I can relate; sometimes I unintentionally look for something that's "just right," even if I couldn't describe that perfect thing, myself.
I recently pondered just what it is that makes something perfect. I imagined the varying degrees of satisfaction of things - products, produce, services, relationships, and even weather. In following the twisty, windy path that my mind often takes, I was invariably led down the ideological rabbit hole into the upside-down world of politics.
Speaking on government, Thomas Jefferson wrote in his greatest political work, The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America, or, as it is more colloquially known, the Declaration of Independence, "... All experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
So, historically speaking, it is a well-established fact that people will accept less than ideal conditions. As a student (albeit a poor one) of praxeology, this set me to wondering: just how much do people tolerate of something, and why? It didn't take long for the word "priorities" to come to my head. This isn't a new subject to this dusty, creaking blog, and it seems someone keeps dropping quarters in the jukebox to play the same, ol' tune. But I really began to wonder about it this time. Why must some things be just so, and others not so much?
Police have been summoned to fast food restaurants to respond to relatively slow service. Long lines of people with too much time and money have camped, tents and all, for days outside the doors of an electronics supplier to be among the first to hold a soon-to-be-outdated, overpriced mobile device. Thousands of dollars will be spent on tickets to see every football game of the season, and pilgrimages to the stadium will be made religiously, rain or shine. No real reimbursement is ever or will ever be made to the millions of deluded people who fill the coffers of the various false religions, chief among which is the Catholic cult - no real fulfillment is ever found there, least of all salvation.
And yet the people go on, more or less, content or discontent, here or there, doing what they do. The first rule of praxeology is, "People act." I am no exception. So, how should I and everyone act to be perfectly satisfied?
"The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O LORD, endureth for ever: forsake not the works of thine own hands. ~Psalm 138:8
"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee." ~Isaiah 26:3
God never promised His people perfection in this life. Far from it, He promised pretty dismal stuff; but He did promise it to be well with us. Perfection is elusive, if not impossible, whenever men are involved. And the fact that life is promised to be a struggle does not exempt us from working toward a more satisfactory goal. But seeing the world with a godly perspective will bring the peace needed to satisfy our desire for perfection.
We prefer things. That's fine. I want things to be a certain way, and it makes me strive and work; but if that work is anything other than an attempt to fulfill a godly desire, that desire will never be fulfilled, and I will continue down a dark, broad path, and I will never achieve the satisfaction I pursue.
BABY BEAR - 2016
He's Just Right for America
1 comment:
"When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to know,
It is well, it is well, with my soul."
~Horatio Spafford
Post a Comment