I knew This Would Happen

I knew this would happen.  The night I started this blog I knew that one day, though I didn't know when, I would be tired of blogging.  And now is that time when it is just not as fun as it used to be.  Just like everything else, I had a feeling that it would just be another venture of mine I had set off on for one reason or another.

In my life thus far, I have set off on many of these ventures.  My junior year of high school I got on this ping-pong kick.  This one was actually my favorite.  I aspired to become an Olympic ping-pong player.  I made videos of myself, had training sessions in which I would practice my slam, and I even attempted at applying for the Olympic team  tryouts in Philadelphia for the 2008 games.  Unfortunately, I was late applying.  But that didn't stop me from pursuing my goal of becoming a great ping-pong player.  No sir it did not.  Becoming an official United States Association of Table Tennis (USATT) competitor, I entered my first tournament in Newport, Kentucky.  It's crazy, but almost as soon as that tournament was over my aspiration of becoming a ping-pong legend was almost gone.  Some may think my aspirations were smashed because I got dominated on by kids, but that's not the reason.  The reason is because the excitement and rush I got from ping-pong was over.  I felt what it was like to play in a real tournament and I was ready to try my hand at something else.  And though I have gone on shorter ping-pong kicks since then, it always goes away.

The truth is, this happens over and over again in almost everything I fill my time with.  I no longer enjoy Halo as much as I used to.  When football is in season, I like it better than basketball; and when basketball season is in, I like it better than football.  My crew and I used to make movies, now we don't.  After two days of watching movies, that becomes monotonous.  I can only play the same guitar chords over and over before that gets old.  Why does this happen?  My boy King Solomon says it best, and if anyone knows, he knows.  He says, "'Meaningless!  Meaningless!'... 'Utterly meaningless!  Everything is utterly meaningless" (Ecclesiastes 1:2).  The reason he knew that everything was meaningless is because he tried everything in a vain attempt to fill his deepest longings.  Wine, sex, riches, success, entertainment, etc.  You can name anything in the context of 1,000 BC and he probably had it or tried it and he said it was meaningless. Of all that he had and tried to fill his soul with though, there was one exception.  In the end of Ecclesiastes, what is thought to be something of a journal of King Solomon, he says this: "Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.  For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil" (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).

I used to not be ready to die.  There was still things I wanted to do, but now I can say that I am ready.  Now I don't mean that I have a death wish on my own life or that I hope I die in my sleep tonight.  That is not what I am saying at all.  What I am saying is that I don't have this longing to hang around here in hopes of experiencing life anymore.  I know where life is, and it is in God and God alone.  And whether or not God wants me to experience Him here on earth or with Him in Heaven makes no difference to me (Philippians 1:22-26).

If you have never come into an intimate relationship with God in which He forgives you of your sins and you want to talk about it, let me know because I would love to talk to you about it.  Or if you just have a question about this post or anything else under the sun, ask away.

Post Script: Read Ecclesiastes this week and see what Solomon has to say about those things which are vain.