Beach Feast

Zechariah 7: 5-6 " Say to all the people in the land and the priests, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted? 6 And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?"

We just got back from a great week at Blue Mountain Beach, Florida. One thing that you can bank on is watching people "live life to the fullest" at the beach. Especially the first day, when excitement abounds and hangovers have not set in yet. It is truly amazing to watch entire families joyfully sprint to the beach, crank up cozy tunes and start cracking cold ones or drinking "boat drinks". It is easy to see that for many families this is the pinnacle time of relaxation and togetherness. As the week goes by tensions mount, but that first burst of joy on day one is an interesting thing to watch.

I catch myself wondering: why can we not be this way towards God? Shouldn't we anticipate each day with Him, with intensity?

The scripture from Zecahariah says many things. The biggest two are these:
1) We are heavily focused on ourselves.
2) Our natural tendency is to find fun and joy in the things of this world, and sorrow and gloom in the things of God. Notice how the eating and drinking was done to themselves, but their mourning and fasting was assigned to God yet both were done to serve themselves?

If this does not describe us as a culture, I am not quite sure what else does. What would it be like if we ran towards God each day with the anticipation of the first cannon ball in the pool? What if our kids saw us as satisfied with Christ as we are when beach umbrellas, white sand and adult beverages totally satisfy our senses? What if the world saw us in a joyous fast and mistook our Godly contentment for a coconut scented, ultra-relaxed beach partier?

God would change the world through us.

I got a feeling that is what He is after. Us filled with Him. Us rightly satisfied with Him. Others puzzled at Christ in Us.

How does this look in your life? Do you manufacture joy through the temporary things of this world, or do you find permanent joy in God? Do you seperate the "have to do the God things" from the "get to do the fun things in life"?