Volume 28, No.9
\March 2, 2003


Squeezing The Most Out of Life

   These lemons left a sour taste in the mouths of some very surprised people.

   Under U.S. law, an automaker that can’t fix a car’s problems must buy it back. More than 100,000 defective vehicles each year are returned so they can be destroyed or studied by company engineers.  But in a North Carolina lawsuit, Daimler Chrysler was forced to admit it repurchased 50,000 vehicles between 1993 and 2000 for $1.3 billion, then resold most without disclosing the past problems!   

   On a smaller scale, Bill Baker of Redding, California was helping his wife with a meatloaf recipe when he discovered his 20-ounce bottle of Heinz Ketchup was an ounce and a half short.  Suspicious, he called the state’s Division of Measurement which checked all the company’s bottling lines.  Sure enough, each Heinz container was short by up to two percent.  Though that might seem like no big deal, the scam saved Heinz $650,000 worth of ketchup in California alone.  The state fined the company, which also agreed to overfill its bottles for one year.

   And have you ever wondered why most recorded songs fade out instead of coming to a proper ending?  The practice started in the 1950s when a music survey revealed that people were more likely to replay a jukebox record that faded out, because it left them with a subconscious feeling they hadn’t heard the whole song. Technicians at the Chess Record Company also got their songs more play by developing a new groove-cutting method that made their music one-third louder than the other records in the machines.

   It’s much the same when it comes to the music of life.  The loudest, more urgent and insistent things that clamour for our attention get most of our energy and allegiance.  Ironically, the most demanding aspects of our lives are seldom the most important.  Name the things that selfishly insist on centre stage and you’ll find they pale in comparison to the truly important people and priorities that get pushed aside when we’re preoccupied with the petty.

   Worse, the songs of secular self-centredness that promise success and fulfillment invariably fade into a frustrating sense of the unfinished.  No matter how hard we emphasize the “me” in each melody, every one of them comes to a close without closure that leaves us hankering for more because we can’t shake the feeling we’re missing something.  And we are.  We’re missing God and the intimate, ultimate purpose He brings to life.

   Apart from him, no recipe for successful living will be complete. Each time our culture offers an ingredient to replace God, it cheats us.  It holds back.  It never gives full measure or full value.  It’s not a question of whether our lives are half-empty or half-full — we were shortchanged from the get-go.  After a while, wethe empty space becomes obvious.

   Even when,on the surface, the world makes amends, it makes a mess. No matter how shiny and new, its vehicles to happiness are defective.  They look good but won’t get you anywhere in the long run.  Look no further than the possessions and positions we rely on to define who we are and make us feel whole.

   The solution is to embrace the spiritual side of our being and let God fill the space that only He can occupy if we want to be truly content, instead of trying to jam unsuitable substitutes into a void where nothing else will ever fit.  “He himself gives life and breath to everything,” writes Paul, “and He satisfies every need there is.”  

   Our steadfast, faithful Father is active in his creation, yearning for us to feel our way back to him through the daze and deceit of a distracted world.  “He’s not far from any of us.  For in him we live and move and exist,”  which is why “He commands everyone everywhere to turn away from idols and turn to him.” (Acts 17:25-30)

   Turn to him out of need, or gratitude, or both. Turn to him knowing He’ll never deceive or desert you.  True happiness is found in the embrace of God, not the squeeze of the world.    

By Rick Gamble, published in Cross Current, the weekly newsletter of the Followers of Christ congregation in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.  Reprint at will in not-for-profit publications.  To subscribe, contact sgamble@bfree.on.ca