Pursuit

I recently watched Up In The Air starring George Clooney as a guy who travels for a living and is in pursuit of 10,000,000 miles flown with American Airlines which would make him the 7th person to do it.  He teaches a seminar on getting rid of all the things that will hold you down if you are a person who is wanting to achieve such status, things like homes, cars, photos, family, anything that would slow or stop the pursuit.  For achieving the goal he gets a card made of real gold, lifetime Executive Platinum status and he gets to meet the Chief Captain of the airline.  The turning point of the show is once he achieves this great feat (in his mind), he has realized it was an empty dream. 


In Rick's sermon yesterday, he stated (and I'm paraphrasing a bit) "man spends the first half of his life looking for success and the second half looking for significance."  What happens when we set our course to pursuing something we think we want so badly only to realize it was the wrong thing to pursue?  What then? 


Some of us have been fortunate to learn there is only one thing we need to pursue with all of our being - a relationship with God - and having been successful in that effort, everything else will fall into place.  If we put all of our energy and devotion in pursuing wealth, relationships, happiness, 10,000,000 miles, anything other than God we will come to the end of the pursuit realizing it is not wholly fulfilling.  Only God can fill us up, only God can give us everything we need and only in God can we be truly content with what we have.


My daughter, who only saw the end of the movie but got the concept pretty quickly, got up and simply said "depressing."  Pursuing God will not be an easy road full of laughs, smiles and candy-canes but one thing I am confident of, at the end of the pursuit "depressing" will not be the response.  Instead, I expect to be speechless and filled with amazement at how wonderful the prize my God will give me.


Grace and peace to you.