Typed entirely with my left hand - 1st monologue

Drunk on Stimulus: Too Much of a Good Thing

Lately, when I look at my schedule I cringe. Bible study on Monday, movies on Tuesday, BBQ with small group on Wednesday, watch The Office on Thursday. Last week's schedule of events was similar. Same bad show, same bad channel.

It's not that I don't like doing any of these things. I'm not anti-fun. It just seems like that's all I've been doing lately. I could blame my recent hand surgery, but I know that's not the answer. My schedule was this way before - there was just more of it.

I think it's because there's a God-shaped hole in me (yes, we can blame Plumb for the musical reference), and I'm prone to trying to stuff that hole with the wrong things. Kind of like filling up on candy bars instead of eating a healthy meal. Sure, the candy bar is tasty, and the fulfillment is immediate. But it's temporary, and too many of them can lead to diabetes.

"We are all on drugs yeah
Never getting enough (never get enough)
We are all on drugs yeah
Give me some of that stuff (WOO)"

"We Are All On Drugs," Weezer

I'm prone to filling that God-shaped hole with the wrong things: movies with shiny machines, big explosions and characters that grab me, new songs with thumping bass and driving guitars, the best artwork, and the deepest conversations. Fulfillment is immediate, but temporary. Too much can lead to addiction - the type 2 diabetes of the soul. My soul wants God, but I glut it with something else. Eventually, it becomes resistant to the very thing it was meant to thrive on.

"The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing."
- Ecclesiastes 1:8b

I'm not satisfied by what I see and hear; I never will be. I wasn't designed that way. Nobody is. Solomon recognized the problem with entertainment 2,700 years ago: when we seek to glut ourselves with entertainment, we attempt to fill ourselves with what can't possibly satisfy. We can't satisfy our souls on what we can see and hear - the temporal - because we are designed to be satisfied by that which is eternal, Christ (Psalm 37:4).

I think that my dissatisfaction with my entertainment-soaked life is really a cry for more God in it. I want fellowship that goes deeper. I want to reach out to those who are lost and hurting in this world. I don't want to just soak in church on Sundays and speak God on Mondays - I want to put into action what I'm learning.

I like fun, but too much of a good thing is not good. I don't want a life that is just fun. I want one that is marked by purpose.