I received an email devotional this week using a word I about became obsessed with. This word caused me to really, really do some thinking.
(The death of my friends 22 year old son week before last made me think too. It made me realize how short & how precious LIFE is)
The word I saw in the devotional & thought about this week & nearly became OBSESSED with was the word “OBSESSION. You can look around today & see folks everywhere OBSESSED with something.
OBSESSED: “To preoccupy the mind excessively; to have the mind excessively preoccupied with a single emotion or topic”. The word EXCESSIVE means “going beyond the usual, necessary, or proper limit or degree; beyond what is right and proper”.
I began to think “Is there anything I am OBSESSED with today?” I can’t think of anything materialistic that “PREOCCUPIES MY MIND EXCESSIVELY”. Maybe my Grandkids?
Then I thought about when I was growing up….Me, my brother & our friends in Orlando might have been OBSESSED with sports, having fun, playing outside…..When I got older I saw folks I knew OBSESSED with girls, with drinking, with drugs, with money…..NOT ME.
(Maybe I was OBSESSED with having fun, wherever I went I wanted to have fun…Maybe it was a 1976 Ford F-100 I bought after graduating from college in December of 1976. I went to work for Minute Maid in Auburndale, Florida out of college & bought a 1976 low miles 4 wheel drive pick up truck. First thing I did was put a 3 ½ inch lift kit, then I put 10 hundred 16 inch oversized tires with white spoke rims, then I put dual exhaust with 2 thrush mufflers & had painted on the front hood “The Dream Machine”, as I might have been OBSESSED with Pro Wrestling & Dusty Rhodes the American Dream)
MATTHEW 6: Verses 19-21
19"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
I was reading an article where a reporter asked several other reporters what their favorite interview was indicating most radio or television reporters have their favorite interviews. The writer asked his colleagues if he could share his favorite interview.
(The man he interviewed was Mel Fisher. To tell his story he would have to go all the way back to 1622. That was the year that the Spanish galleon, Atocha, was being loaded down in Havana with large trunks containing gold and silver bars, emeralds, rubies, coins, and other treasures bound for Spain. But just two days after setting sail the Atocha and the rest of her flotilla was destroyed by a hurricane. Spanish officials marked the wreckage but were unable to retrieve it. Sixty days later a second hurricane came through and the Atocha vanished without a trace.
Three hundred and fifty years later this guy, Mel Fisher, believed he knew where the Atocha lay. So he gathered the crew and raised the money and began his quest to find the sunken treasure. Beginning in 1969 Mel Fisher said he would wake up his crew with the words, “Hang in there and keep on a-going. Today we’re going to succeed!” In 1973 they found three silver bars. Two years later five bronze cannons from the Atocha were uncovered but still no treasure. Yet, every morning, “Hang in there and keep on a going. Today we’re going to succeed!”
It makes you wonder what could keep a man going despite years of failure. Mel said he just knew the treasure existed. (HE KNEW WHERE IT WAS HE JUST COULD NOT FIND IT. Ever been there?) He knew it had to be there. So year after year he convinced investors to back him and year after year he kept searching, kept digging, kept diving and kept coming up empty. Then on the morning of July 20, 1985, sixteen years after he began his quest, Mel received this message from his son, “Put away the charts; we’ve found the Mother lode!” Within days divers began retrieving what amounted to 47 tons of silver, 150,000 gold coins and bars and millions of dollars in precious gems.
Have we ever wanted something so badly it became on obsession. Finding the Atocha was Mel Fisher’s obsession. He pursued his obsession with persistence & determination. He asked and kept on asking. He knocked and kept on knocking. He sought and kept on seeking.
What’s our obsession? What’s your passion? Is it working? I read a story about New England Quarterback Tom Brady:
Most guys want to be like the 3-time Super Bowl winning quarterback and most girls want to be with the 3-time Super Bowl winning quarterback. Anyway, Tom Brady recently told 60 minutes recently, “Why do I have 3 Super Bowl rings and still think there’s something greater out there for me? I reached my goal, my dream, my life…I think, God, it’s got to be more than this. I mean this…can’t be what it’s all cracked up to be!”
I think about King Solomon. He had every carnal desire satisfied, I believe he had experience every sensual pleasure that could be experienced in his day yet he writes in Eccl. 2:17, “The work which I had been done under the sun was grievous to me; because everything is futility and striving after the wind.”
Solomon was chasing the wind. Have you ever tried to chase & catch the wind? If we are after the things of this world then we are chasing the wind. ((It’s like eating Styrofoam) When we used
to work with my Dad & Granddad around cattle & citrus we worked hard. My Grandmother would cook dinner for us & we would come to their house & eat. My Grandfather would tell us to eat up because we needed food that would “stick to our ribs”, food that would stay with us while we worked hard. She always cooked chicken, pork chops, rice & gravy, black eyed peas & green beans mashed potatoes, food that would stay with us the remainder of the day. I can only imagine what would have happened had we tried to work after eating Styrofoam.
I think about the Apostle Paul having authority & power when he was with the Sanhedrin yet he too writes in (PHILIPPIANS 3: 4-8)
4though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. 7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
Man today appears to be OBSESSED in trying to find an abundant, contented and purpose-filled life on their own terms & IT WILL NOT WORK!!! The Lord told the prophet Jeremiah, “My people have committed two evils; they’ve forsaken me the river of living water to dig for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)
In Matthew 6:33 Jesus says if you seek after him first and his righteousness he’ll take care of EVERYTHING, I mean EVERYTHING else we need.
You can see by what comes on TV today what man is OBSESSED with money, power, sexual immortality, drugs, alcohol & much more immorality. I asked myself this week “What Do I preoccupy my mind with excessively?
We should wake up every day with the same attitude Mel Fisher had while he was searching for the treasure of the Atocha Hang in there and keep on a going. Today we’re going to succeed!”
We should have the same attitude as Paul to the Colossians “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things”. (Colossians 3: 1-2)
When we stand before God on Judgment day & hear “WELL DONE THOU GOOD AND FAILFUL SERVANT….ENTER IN…. Then we will know we have in fact succeeded!!!!
