Tuesday, October 2, 2001
Our kids' first pet was one of those furry little fellows called a gerbil. Frankly, I think gerbils need to get a life. Did you ever watch a gerbil? They do the same thing almost all the time. I'd walk over to our gerbil's cage and there he was - on the wheel. Running on the wheel. Go back two hours later, there he is - on the wheel. Running on the wheel. Going nowhere. If you could talk to Gerbie, you might just say to him, "Do you know you're not going anywhere on that wheel? You're just burning up a lot of energy. Don't you think you should maybe change something?" So he does. He runs faster on the wheel, going nowhere! Dumb gerbil.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about "The Great Gerbil Race."
Problem here. There are way too many of us who are two-legged gerbils. Watching that gerbil wearing himself out on a wheel is just too much of a mirror of how a lot of us live. We're running really hard in pursuit of the great obsession - more! More possessions, more toys, more money, more position, more recognition, more power. But our lives are increasingly spinning out of control, just like that gerbil wheel.
Which makes our word for today from the Word of God make a whole lot of sense. In a way, Ecclesiastes 4:6 is a road map from God for getting off the wheel. He says, "Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind." Interesting choice the Bible spells out - more stuff, less peace - less stuff, more peace. And you make the choice - when you decide to settle for "one handful" instead of pursuing all you can get.
The problem with getting caught up in the gerbil race to get "more" is that more is never enough. Someone asked the fabulously wealthy John D. Rockefeller how much is enough. He said, "A little bit more." So it really is a gerbil wheel that never takes us where we want to go. You get more house - you want even more house. You get more of a position, and soon you want the next position on the ladder. If you're driven to always get more, you are sentencing yourself to a life of incurable discontentment. And God's word to us is that "godliness with contentment is great gain." It really is.
Plato said, "Contentment is not getting everything you always wanted to have. It's realizing how much you already have!" That's especially true for someone who belongs to God through Jesus Christ. You are being cared for by the Lord who is your Shepherd - and He's promised that you will not be "in want." You are being provided for by a Heavenly Father who knows exactly what you need and has unlimited resources with which to meet your needs - He will, according to the Bible, supply "all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19). So you're supposed to be seeking "first His kingdom," not running after the "more" that Jesus said is what "the pagans run after" (Matthew 6:32).
So isn't it time you got off that gerbil wheel of always running after more? Maybe it's time to settle for a little less business, a little less promotion, a little less income - so you can have a lot more peace. Better is one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind. Choose that one handful with peace instead of those two handfuls with so much stress. Listen, leave that endless run on a wheel to the gerbils. It's just no place for a child of God.