While sitting by a Wal-mart I watched seagulls clean the parking lot. They are most likely the same gulls that are always there. They have a good thing going. People are trashy so there are ample French fries and other pieces of food from the McDonalds inside the Wal-mart. Then, of course, there are the dumpsters out back. We live over an hour’s drive from the ocean so I doubt if these birds are tourists. They have contented themselves with an ocean of blacktop and the refuse of humans. It is a long way from riding the winds and soaring along the coast and feeding on fresh seafood.
They reminded me of people content to live second-rate lives far from God’s design for them. God longs for us to ride first class. He dreams for us to grow into excellence and to do and experience things our parents never dared hope for us. There are levels of accomplishment and challenges to conquer waiting for those no longer content to mentally eat the media trash fed to us on a daily basis.
God calls us not only to salvation from sin but from the mediocrity of coasting through life like water that always chooses the easiest path downhill. If we would discipline ourselves to learn something new each day about our job, our spouse, our children and our God we would soon ride the wind and soar above those content to eat other’s trash.
Paul wrote to Timothy, “Study to show thy self approved unto God” not just to make God happy but to fill us with grandeur.
Written by Roger Bothwell on November 28, 2003.
Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574