Friday, February 28, 2014

Formula for frustration…

Deep inside all of us we have a deep desire to feel worthwhile.  We all want to feel significant.  We all want to feel that we matter.  We all want to feel that if we were to die, somebody would miss us, that we're not just taking up space and that our life has meaning and significance.  We all want to feel worthwhile. 

In fact, you spend much of your life being motivated to do things that you hope will answer the question, "Do I matter?"  So I go out for a sport, or try to get A's, or try to get the promotion, I just want to know "Do I matter?"  People will do all kinds of crazy things – bungy jumping or whatever – to find out, does my life matter? 

A few years back in an article in a magazine there was an interview with Madonna.  She said this:  "I have an iron will and all of my will has always been devoted to conquering some horrible feeling of inadequacy.  I'm always struggling with that fear.  I push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being and then I get to another stage and I think I'm mediocre and uninteresting.  I find a way to get myself out of that again and again.  My drive in life is from this horrible fear of being inadequate and mediocre.  It is always pushing me and pushing me.  Because even though I've become somebody I still have to prove that I am SOMEBODY.  My struggle has never ended and it probably never will."  If the truth were known a lot of you feel that way.

Formula for frustration:  Try to please everybody.  Madonna is setting herself up for more frustration because she's on a treadmill and she has to become more and more outrageous to keep the attention and admiration of her fans.  What's going to happen when inevitably her popularity fades?  What's going to happen to her? 

The truth is, no matter how much money you make in life and no matter how much success you achieve and no matter how much pleasure you experience and no matter how many relationships you have and no matter how many people you go to bed with and no matter how popular or famous you become, how many magazines you get your picture on the cover of, none of it is going to matter until you've established a relationship with GOD through JESUS CHRIST and begin to discover how much you matter to HIM and base your self worth on that.  Nothing else is going to satisfy.  As soon as you get one thing, you've got to get to the next level.  If that weren't true you'd have been satisfied with your first "A" if you got one. 

Just a thought from the front porch…

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