Someone commented on a post today that if the Buffalo Sabres win the Stanley Cup this year, it will change their life.

It got me thinking – these guys that achieve success, say winning the Stanley Cup or getting discovered with their talents – they get there and it’s like, “What now?”   Success gets old. These mega-millionaires just keep wanting more money. You are ever chasing what forever eludes you.

Reaching the top of whatever you are chasing is exciting for sure but it really won’t affect our lives- and it’s temporary at best.

And if it does then we can’t control our own happiness- OR we can cultivate an attitude of gratitude no matter what happens.

I am free to enjoy a Bills or Sabres playoff run- but if they lose it won’t change my life.

Think about the St Louis Blues- or the Philly Eagles- they both won championships finally – but a short time later the fans are again disillusioned – and their current short comings seem all that more amplified.

What will solve the fleeting success of your favorite team winning the Cup or the Superbowl or the World Series pennant the next year?   Winning another title. And only another one after that.

The problem with that being your definition for completion and success is you are never satisfied- it’s an ever elusive goal.

Instead – Enjoy today. Enjoy the games – win or lose.

And for yourself focus on activity and everyday improving yourself and not results.

A bad break – a no goal- a wide right- That could be the difference between championship or 2nd place-

And win or lose- if it defines you it controls you.

There is some of that in the sex addiction and other addiction realms as well.  If our goal isn’t a lofty dream, it can be to just give into the flesh fantasies totally unhindered. Until I saw some long term victory, I had dark gnawing fantasies that hounded me to just embrace.   Sometimes it was a trip down memory lane, sometimes it was images I seen in my life or innuendos I didn’t recognize that went over my head when I was younger and naive.   There was no restraints either as I let my mind degrade unhindered – I could go back in time and join in any sexual encounter from my life or anyone else’s, I could become anyone I wanted, I could pervert any encounter I wanted,  and there was no restraints.  And it just kept going deeper and deeper down this cess pool of wickedness and it was never enough.   Trying to engage the desires that LUST creates is like pouring gasoline on them.  It creates an inferno.  You can’t satisfy lust by feeding it.  You must starve the flesh, deny the flesh, tell it NO.

I know that part is wrong.  It is wrong to chew on perversion and the forbidden.  It just will leave you unsatisfied and thirsty for more.

YET where it’s not as easy is what do you do about desires for good that seem to never be enough?  Those desires for success, for achievement, for purpose, for not wasting your life – how do we handle them?  Are they God given visions we need to act on – or are they coming from our own insecurities and insufficiencies and they are motivated by being worries about what people think or proving ourselves to an ex so-and-so.  An ex boss or an ex church or an ex fiancee or an ex best friend.   Or even our current boss or current extended family or current church.

It’s harder to see the desire for success or the desire to find out my calling or purpose or make money to get out of debt – my desire to build a business on social media – all that seems just as fantasy driven, but it’s so confusing over what is of God and what is of the flesh. If I reach out to a church for help, the fear is they will hijack your god given talents and exploit you to build their church.  To build their dream.

I have been manipulated for gain from churches to the point I don’t trust any of them and we haven’t been to church for a long time. I don’t know where to even begin when it comes to church.

I have a passion to write. I love to write, i have a talent – I just can’t figure out how to make a dime from it.

Most of us who grew up years ago had parents pressure us to go to college and we were told that being doctors or dentists or lawyers or pharmacists or go into government would be great jobs with great security and that was enough.

Many of us did that and we are miserable today – and there is no job security, there are not a ton of jobs, you have to sell your soul really to a company and you have to totally fake your loyalty etc to them and they don’t want you if you aren’t a team player. They don’t want you if you love JESUS and your loyalty is to GOD.  They don’t want you if you don’t embrace the LGBT agenda or the Black lives matter agenda or the liberal socialism or whatever.

It’s so disillusioning. It’s so empty. It’s so confusing.  It feels like you can’t figure it out.

I just watched again that famous Christmas movie, “It’s a wonderful life” and it’s hard to not be disillusioned with then and now. Back then they were just on the verge of the sexual revolution but up to that point, they weren’t quite living for God and his way, but they were satisfied with the lies of this world being enough.   They were mesmerized by the science of the day – the Wonder bread – the man on the moon (they didn’t have all the truth come out how they faked the moon landing and LIED to the world!!) – the TV dinner – all that.

Back then, you knew your neighbors.  It was forbidden to have sex before marriage still in many of that culture, so there was a thrill in holding a girls hand and sneaking a kiss or whatever and marriage had this mystique.   Today marriage is made to look like a prison sentence where you never have fun or freedom again.  You could provide for your family with one job you worked at for 50 years and there was no Pinterest or Social media to compare your home with so you could be content.

Church seemed real. And I think that generation was good at being hoodwinked and thinking they had God’s blessings and they had this confidence in America – and today it’s like the truth has come out. That way wasn’t really true either -but our way today we know it’s a lie, some of us. We know they lie to us in the media and you can’t trust government or science or anything and even you can’t trust the church today.  Some people like to live being lied to and like to keep their head in the sand, but for many of us, we have taken the red pill and see the slavery of it all, and see the futility of this world.  We see that this world is a big ugly lie and the devil is the god of it, and we really want little to do with this world.

We want something real. We want someone to really care.  Today you think you have all these friends on the job or at church or in the neighborhood but they aren’t real.  Leave your church and see who hunts you down.  Leave your job and you might get a Christmas card the first year or two from a couple of them.  It’s all superficial, it’s all an inch deep.

We have little emotional support, we have few friends, we have 500-10,000 Facebook and Instagram followers and yet no one really cares about our souls or our lives.   If we die, there are dozens of other people’s lives to follow instead.

It’s phony, empty, shallow pathetic.

And it seems like there is no fixing it.

and no stopping it.

JESUS needs to really be who defines our reality.  Not this world.  And not the people in it.