SEEKING, SATISFACTON, AND SERENDIPITY

It is hot, by Pasadena standards at least, and I am looking for ways to stay cool.  Ice water, AC's and shade trees are high on my agenda today.  I love cold and have often wondered how cold it would have to be for me to cry out, "Enough."  Other people want to go to Hawaii and I want to go to the North Pole.  Vonnie says I can go if I don't mind going alone. 

I have been thinking about what makes a person happy.  Is that the right word, happy?  Maybe satisfied is a better word.  Happy is such a chameleon of a word.  But satisfied has about it a sense of peace, and peace always has a wonderful ring to it.  So, satisfied it is. 

What makes a person satisfied? Weather?  Stability?  Money?  Power?  Sex?  Affirmation? Accomplishments?  Family?  Conquest?  Self-giving?  Love?  Forgiveness?  Doing good deeds?  Justice?  Mercy? 

What if being satisfied was not even the right word?  Suppose, the pursuit of anything for its own sake fell short of what it means to really be who we are?  What if being satisfied was a bi-product that came with the pursuit of something greater than being satisfied? 

I love the word serendipity.  It means to discover something accidentally, while in pursuit of something entirely different.  Suppose being satisfied is a gift of serendipity.  In pursuit of living an excellent life one finds a deep-seated inner satisfaction.  It wasn't the reason for the pursuit but it was a gift given in the pursuit. 

Suppose Jesus knew what He was talking about when He told His followers to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matt. 6:33).  Suppose it is in the seeking we find the abundant life He also promised (John 10:10).  Suppose that life really is meant to be lived in response to the grace and mercy of God?  

Once upon a time I thought that one of these days my ship was really going to come in, and when it did, I was going to do great things for God.  Then I recognized the ship was already in.  Waiting for the ship became a hindrance to embracing the ship that was already there.  That was the day life really became alive for me. 

The one-of-these-days insanity died that day and the grace and mercy of God became the awesome arena in which life began to be lived.  Pursuit gave way to a Person.  The Person, Jesus, embraced my life and life itself became the gift because He, Himself, is Life. Life became imbued with His life, and ever since then I have sung with John Newton, "…Amazing grace…I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see."