Sometimes I have these really silly thoughts cross my mind. Take the one that’s been haunting me all day for instance. It’s that thought that says I should abandon everything I’m doing because in all reality, I’m getting nowhere. I have nothing to prove that I’m doing anything productive. Why? Because I’m the furthest that anyone could be from living the American dream.
Here I am at 24-years-old with a college degree that I’m not using. I’m not working towards a career that the world deems successful. I have no wife. I have no house. I have no car. I have no dog. I have no 401K. I don’t even have insurance.
But I love it.
I’m living in a house with a handful of other radicals who are in the same position I am. We have nothing of value to this world, but we add everything of value to it. We are each keepers of God’s dream, a dream that we steward by tilling soil that isn’t necessarily our own, yet it’s ground that gives us a foundation to plant our dreams on.
So what’s the big deal?
Today was one of those days that I thought about giving up on it. Sometimes I feel like I’m living in such a fantasy world. I may be a Christian, but I’m not a superhero. The glitz and glamor of the world surrounding us tends to rub off on me too. I wake up in the morning and sometimes wish that I had a sweet BMW hatchback to skid off to work in. And I sometimes wish that I could return to home at the end of the day to my wife and perhaps some kids… leaving work at work and having the ability to live life.
But I quickly remind myself that what I envision for what could be is really a vision for what will never be. Maybe I could pack my bags and leave today. I could go back to school, earn a Masters degree in something ridiculous, and start putting merit badges on my ‘sash’. I could buy the car, woo the wife, get the kids, and all that.
But after ten years, unfulfillment would creep back in. And it’s not that it would creep back in; it would have been there the entire time. I would just be good at ignoring it. I don’t want to be that guy who can’t commit when things seem… hard.
Satan can keep his lure of the American dream. He’s the one who is unfulfilled by it, not me. He’s the one fooled by it, not me. And he’s the one who can’t get no satisfaction, because I’m fully satisfied.
I’ll keep my borrowed house with a rag-tag bunch of Jesus freaks, loaned vehicles, and faith-filled bank accounts. It’s a lot more adventurous anyway.
