Acquisition is an Intoxicating Poison

Acquisition is an Intoxicating Poison.

 

Intoxicating because, as men, we are inexorably drawn to gather and possess that which both satisfies desire and serves as fuel for more.  Poison because, like any other medicine or drug, abundance can prove counter productive – even deadly. 

 

As boys growing up in American society, we are taught by the success-driven machine that is our culture that we are defined by what we achieve & accumulate…That the worth of our lives will be measured by what we are able pull-off & own.  This societal programming is hard wired into our psyches, and wars with the values of the heart: love, family, genuine friendship, compassion, to name a few. 

 

Older men who have experienced the American Dream fall into three categories: Those who have slowed down in the twilight years to enjoy the relationships produced by balanced & fruitful living; those who are still mindlessly chasing after unattainable satiation of the inner aspiration to achieve; and those who have become lucid only after realizing the tragedy that the energies of their lives were spent climbing up the wrong mountain.  How many comfortably-retired lonesome men are there out there who sit in coffee shops, retirement homes, or alone in their homes, wishing to God that they had lived with different priorities; realizing only now that their imbalanced lifestyles gained them the fulfillment of their dreams, yet forfeited them the relationships & self-respect of those who are awake.

As an American man, and a follower of Christ, I struggle with this balance daily.  I have no answers to this to trump the Bible’s directives that serve as boundaries along the lanes of life’s highway:

• Ecclesiastes 9:8-10 – “Live happily with the woman you love through all the meaningless days of life that God has given you in this world. The wife God gives you is your reward for all your earthly toil.  Whatever you do, do well. For when you go to the grave, there will be no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom.”
• Psalm 127:3-5 – “Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.  Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hands. How happy is the man whose quiver is full of them!”
• Luke 12:15 – “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
• Ecclesiastes 12:1 – “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them.”