Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday October 22, 2008

Ecclesiastes 1:2 "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity."

I read the above note from King Solomon, the man who had it all and yet experienced the feeling of inner emptiness and again came to the conclusion that this emptiness is the major cause of much unhappiness in our country. Think about, people are unhappy about most everything. Unhappy marriage, less than "ideal" children, a terrible job or idiotic pastor, balding pates, non-Palinesq shape, and you know the list continues ad infinitum.

A short while after musing on the insight of King Solomon, the following leaped off the page of the magazine I was browsing:

"Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still think there's something more out there for me? It's got to be more than this."

Tom Brady made this haunting statement in an interview on 60 Minutes in December 2007.

When it comes to success, be success defined as fame, money, women, men like Solomon and Tom Brady have it all, yet the ones I have read about at some point must deal with the feeling of emptiness, the inner voice that whispers "there is more." Yet it often takes tremendous pain to come to the realization that the “more” cannot be held in human hands, it must come from the hand of God to the creature. The longing for the indefinable more can never be a bigger or better house, car, bank account or person. The "More" is spiritual and thus is found through personal acceptance of what the Lord says about us, and our need for a fervent relationship with The Almighty.

This relationship/fellowship with God does not always mean the giving away of everything, but an understanding at least of the place of three Super Bowl rings or the world famous stables of Solomon in the grand scheme of things. Until a man or woman grasps the truth that rich or poor they are the same person inside and status merely reveals, often glaringly the flaws.

Have you noticed that one of most oft repeated statements concerning the early church and its leaders is the phrase, “and they were filled with the Holy Ghost” or a similar phrase? Empty people may "have it all" but as Hemingway said at the peak of his career:

"I live in a vacuum that is as lonely as a radio tube when the batteries are dead, and there is no current to plug into."

There is "more" out there, but the "more" is found in less of ourselves and more of God in us, as we walk along the path we call life.

By the way, Jesus is a proponent of “More” for he said in John 10:10,

"I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it MORE abundantly."

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2008 Use with credit.

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