Day 29 – In continuing our study of the Beatitudes this weekend, Dr. Wendell Estep of First Baptist Church of Columbia moved on to Matthew 5:6, which states “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”
Dr. Estep said that we have three types of thirsts. The first is the physical thirst. As you know, I certainly have a large appetite for tacos, boiled peanuts and barbecue. The second is the intellectual thirst. The third is spiritual thirst.
I’ve been getting a lot of questions as to why I talk about faith so much on this blog. It’s an easy answer. I believe that to be a better person you must thirst for spiritual growth. That is not to say that I think religious people are better people than atheists. I don’t think they’re better. I just think they’re are better off.
It’s not hard to see why. Many religious people, in particular Christians, believe they will live forever. Atheists do not. I think even atheists will tell you that they will not live forever. Christians will tell you they will. And honestly, I don’t see how atheists can be happier than religious people knowing that their life will one day suddenly become nothingness. Honestly, I would live my life in depression knowing that it would all just come to an end. So, I thirst for eternal life in hopes that my thirst will be quenched.
I have said on this blog before that you are what you eat. You are also what you put into your mind. Another way of saying that those who “thirst” will receive “righteousness” is the concept of supply and demand:
Where there is a demand, there will be a supply.
That supply will continue as long as there is a demand.
And as Dr. Estep said today, the supply will be proportional to the demand.
All to say, if the demand is garbage, the supply will be garbage. It seems to me like our world has become intent in demanding garbage, so it comes as no surprise that we’re being supplied garbage. We see it in every area of our lives: physical, intellectual and spiritual. We demand fried chicken, we get KFC. We demand celebrity gossip, we get Jersey Shore and grocery store trash magazines. And in our spiritual world, we demand a resistance to God, so we get his absence in our culture.
If I can sum up my theory on lifestyle design it is this: decide who to be and go be it. That too is supply and demand. Our lifestyle will supply our demands. If we demand to be fat, we will become fat. If we demand stupidity and resist knowledge, we will become idiots. However, if we demand success, the world will supply success. If we demand hard work, we will be supplied prosperity.
Sometimes the easiest way to figure out what is going on in your life, or what you are being supplied, is to look at what you’re demanding. I think if you look at your life and see that things aren’t going the way you want them to, you will find that you were being supplied those things because you are demanding them. If you were being supplied trouble, perhaps you were demanding that you hang out with the wrong crowd. If you are being supplied failure, perhaps you are demanding too much alcohol at night. If you are being supplied drama, perhaps you were demanding too much reality TV.
In my life, I have realized that a lot happened to me that I could not help. But then I realized that I could change what I was being supplied when I changed my demand. So, what are you demanding?
Comments
Powered by Facebook Comments