“Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.”
– Psalm 16:4a

I don’t like feeling crappy. I don’t like feeling uncertain of myself. I want to feel better. I want to feel more important. I want to be loved and admired and respected and revered. Maybe if I had more money. Maybe if I had more friends. Maybe if I had a bigger house, a faster car, a corner office. Maybe when I am at my perfect weight and can knock ‘em dead in anything I wear. Maybe if I find my soulmate and am living happily ever after. Maybe then, I will be happy. Maybe then I will be confident. Maybe then I will feel better. Maybe then I will be important to others, loved, celebrated.

It is simply exhausting to continue chasing after all these things, these people, this stuff in order to find happiness. It is exhausting because there is no end to it. There is no happy at the end of the money rainbow. There is no fulfillment in the house with one hundred rooms or the car that goes from zero to ninety in a flash. There is no joy sitting alone in a corner office. And, there certainly isn’t perfection in a goal weight or a soulmate! The stink of the exhaustion comes as we realize the pot of gold doesn’t exist.

What is interesting to me about the human race, the human brain, the human being, is that for thousands of years, we have been imparting this wisdom upon one another. The warning is so clearly stated in the Psalm written above. Why don’t we listen? I suppose the answer to that question lies within each one of us. Perhaps it is different for each of us. Perhaps it is only when that stink of exhaustion becomes too much for us to bear that we finally wake up and absorb what has already been learned and shared by those who have gone before us.

I am grateful to be finished with the chase. I know there is only One who will bring me certainty, love, respect, joy, fulfillment, celebration. The beauty of that One is that I am not required to beg or plead or chase. The only request is that I follow.