May I ask some personal questions?
Have you ever mistakenly elevated your physical needs and desires above your relationship with God?
Your sex life? Your friendships? Your finances? It would be very easy to believe the devil when he tempts us to consider these things more important than our walk with God. It would be easy to turn worthless stones into bread without regard for what it would do to our relationships with God.
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I found these laying around in a file on my PC.
Where is happiness found? John Rockefeller, a Christian millionaire said, “I have made many millions, but they brought me no happiness. I would barter them all for the days I sat on an office stool in Cleveland and counted myself rich on three dollars a week.”
W.H. Vanderbilt said, “The care of 200 million dollars is too great a load for any brain or back to bear. It is enough to kill anyone. There is no pleasure in it.”
John Jacob Astor left five million, but had been a martyr to dyspepsia and melancholy. He said, “I am the most miserable man on earth.”
Henry Ford, the automobile king, said, “Work is the only pleasure. It is only work that keeps me alive and makes life worth living. I was happier when doing a mechanic’s job.”
Andrew Carnegie, the multi-millionaire, said, “Millionaires seldom smile.”
A. Naismith as quoted by Paul Lee Tan #3546
Regarding the title of this post, “<>” means “does not equal.”
No one gets exemption from hardship on planet Earth. How we receive it hinges on whether we believe in an alternative reality that transcends the one we know so well. The Bible never minimizes hardship or unfairness– witness books like Job, Psalms, and Lamentations. It simply asks us to withhold final judgment until all the evidence is in.
‘Do not be afraid’ is the most frequent command in the Bible…. We have a thousand fears: mammograms and prostate tests, our children’s future as well as their present, retirement funds, job security, crime. We fear not getting the job we want or the lover we desire, and if we have them we fear their loss. In the face of such everyday fear, Jesus points to a lily, or a sparrow, and calmly says, Trust. Seek first the kingdom of heaven.
~Philip Yancey in Rumours of Another World, p. 217