Have you ever set yourself a goal and once you reached it, the happiness of attaining the goal was short lived?  It seemed that the anticipation of the goal and the progress toward it was more satisfying than actually reaching it.  As Spock said in the Star Trek episode Amok Time, “you may find that ‘having’ is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as ‘wanting.’ It is not logical, but it is often true.” I have often experienced this in my life and seen it in others.  This phenomena is actually independent of the goal that is set.  It can be a good goal or a bad goal, sinful or saintly, destructive or constructive.

If we set a particular goal up on a pedestal and see achieving it as the key to our fulfillment or happiness, then it will always fall short.  We never seem to fully “arrive” at the place that brings us contentment, at least not for very long.  We see this in our society over and over again.  Consumerism, hero worship, vanity, etc.  These are destructive pursuits whose goals are selfish.  It is easy as Christians to look down our noses at people who are consumed by these things, even though we often fall prey ourselves.  That is vanity, which is in reality hypocrisy.

What about the pursuit of a noble goal such as doing community service or giving more money to a worthy cause?  Surely meeting these goals is a good thing.  Yes they are, but even a good goal, once met, fades into the past and is forgotten.  The contentment fades and we find that once again we yearn for something we do not have.  We are in the same place as the Teacher in Ecclesiastes when he says “All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”

Some people say that the journey is the thing and I believe that is getting closer to the truth concerning real contentment.  The goals I have mentioned are all relatively short lived.  We either reach them and start looking for another one, or we fail to reach them and look for another one.  As Christians we have been given the ultimate goal.  Paul tells us in Romans 8:29 that God wants us “to be conformed to the likeness of his Son.”  We are to be like Jesus.  Wow, no pressure there!

We will never achieve this goal, but instead of this being a frustration, it can be a liberating realization.  I say we will never reach this goal, but what I mean is that we cannot reach it on our own power.  It is God who will bring us to this goal if we allow Him to.  This is the journey we are on, the journey of becoming like Jesus.  If we obediently follow our guide on this journey, the Holy Spirit, we will be able to experience peace and contentment regardless of the conditions we experience along the way.  We will be able to say along with Paul in Philippians 4:12 and 13 “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.”

My journey is different from yours, and your journey is different from your neighbor’s.  It makes “keeping up with the Jones” irrelevant since we are not to compare ourselves to anyone else anyway (Galatians 6:4).  We should all run the race marked out for us and keep our eyes fixed on Jesus (Hebrews 12:1,2).  We can find joy in becoming what God desires us to be.  For me, it is encouraging to know that God is more interested in who I am becoming than in specifically what I have accomplished.

Steve Jernigan

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