Today is Thanksgiving Day. I have so much to be thankful for, yet I can’t seem to stop thinking about how much I wish my kids were home for this holiday. It was a tough decision to move to the South, knowing that I would not be able to see them as often. So many families are geographically spread apart these days. I guess it has become the norm, but that knowledge doesn’t keep me from missing them.
That got me thinking about how everywhere around us we see commercials and ads that purport to tell us how to live the good life. You know, work for this company, drive this car, buy this product or that product, and you’ll find happiness and fulfillment. Thanks to technology, we can even see ads specifically targeted to our “needs” based on the things we talk about in our e-mails or on our social networking page. Even with the current bad economy – maybe even more so because of it – we are pandered to non-stop. Interesting word: pander. We use it a lot when describing politics, but it actually means “to gratify or indulge (an immoral or distasteful desire, need, or habit or a person with such a desire, etc.)” It has to do with appealing to a human’s basest desires and emotions. When used as a noun, it actually means “pimp” (Oxford English Dictionary). Well, that kind of puts a new spin on the idea of being “pandered to”, doesn’t it?
We respond to these appeals to our lowest desires with alarming enthusiasm, so someone in the marketing department knows what they’re doing. Problem is, on days like today, all that “stuff” is shown for what it is: an empty distraction from what really matters. They are merely inanimate objects that, no matter how much we desire them, will never love us back. Deep down, it is love we really want. It is love we really need.
15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 19 We love because he first loved us. – 1 John 4:15-17, 19
Thank you Father for the love You give, and for the ability to love others...
