Me: What do you see?
Prodigal: I see the sun and the water and where they seem to meet together.
Me: What a wonder to see.
This is from the book God Came Near by Max Lucado
Should a man see only popularity, he becomes a mirror, reflecting whatever needs to be reflected to gain acceptance. Though in vogue, he is vague. Though in style, he is stodgy. Personal convictions change with the seasons. Individual beliefs come in all colors, each for a different night of the week. He’s a puppet on a thousand strings. He’s a singer of a hundred songs, with no song of his own. His appearance changes to fit the seeing so often that he forgets who he set out to be. He is everyone and no one.
Should a man see only power, he becomes a wolf–prowling, hunting, and stalking the elusive game. Recognition is his prey and people are his prizes. His quest is endless. There is always another world to conquer or another person to control. As a result, he who sees only power is degraded to an animal, an insatiable scavenger controlled not by a will from within but by lurings from without.
Should a man see only pleasure, he becomes a carnival thrill-seeker, alive only in bright lights, wild rides, and titillating entertainment. With lustful fever he races from ride to ride, satisfying his insatiable passion for sensations only long enough to look for another. Ferris wheels of romance. Haunted houses of eroticism. Hammer rides of danger and excitement. Long after the crowd is gone he can still be found on the carnival founds rummaging through empty boxes of popcorn and sticky cones that held the cotton candy. He is driven by passion, willing to sell his soul if need be for one more rush, one more race of the pulse, one more sideshow that will take him away from the real world of promises broken and commitments to keep.
Seekers of popularity, power, and pleasure. The end results is the same: painful unfulfillment.
Only in seeking his Maker does a man truly become a man. For in seeing his Creator, man catches a glimpse of what he was intended to be. He who would see his God would then see the reason for death and the purpose of time. Destiny? Tomorrow? Truth? All are questions within the reach of the man who knows his source.
It is in seeing Jesus that man sees his source.
Then Jesus called his disciples unto him, and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way.
Matthew 15:32
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
