Wanting More

Contrived. A difficult word to swallow but that’s what struck me as I wandered the streets of a neighboring outdoor shopping mall in search of my bank’s ATM (which incidentally was erroneously indicated as part of this establishment). It was all so… well… forced. A small town theme in a place where the only point for people being out and about is commercialism. Wow. I sound like one of those crazy anti-capitalism people. You know… those people. I’m not necessarily. Consider me Charlie Brown when I declare that this experience was definitely less than satisfying.

I’m sitting in my car with the a/c running as I think about what just occurred. I’m left asking the question, “what is real?” in our society? I mean, if this is the main attraction of our little subset of society, is this really all we aspire to? Entertainment? Shopping? Another restaurant? And yes, here I go again sounding like one of “those people,” but what of the realities beyond this Disney-esque experience? What of nations killing each other and people dying everyday? And without Jesus?

I once enjoyed walking those under-a-decade-old cobblestone streets accompanied by music from yesteryear…

What happened to me?

I think I’m waking up.

Now don’t get me wrong. I like a good day of window shopping as much as the next girl… but perhaps not as much as I used to. Maybe “pins” aren’t hitting the mark anymore either. And my social news feed certainly has been leaving me wanting, no matter how many times I refresh the page. Hmm.

I guess that all continues to change the more I realize there’s more to life than “more, more, more.” Whether it’s more friends or more clothes or more food or more money or more status updates, when we lean upon these things more heavily than we were ever designed to, it just comes up short. We come up short. Our hunger is more insatiable. For some reason, loading up on more of those empty calories just aren’t fitting the bill. And then there’s that whole other bill…the actual cost of the pursuit of such things at the expense of everything else. How much have I spent already? How much do I have to gain if I lose it all for the sake of what’s real according to Paul? For the sake of knowing Jesus more deeply, more fully, more truly?

Maybe “those people” have something after all.