To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.
Hurry up and wait. So I hurry through a yellow light thinking "Score!!!" and then end up getting to the next light and having to slow down and then stop while all the cars that I beat through the previous light catch up to me. Sometimes we don't see how silly we are. It's like all the people who are mad about Thanksgiving Day sales or Black Friday. They want to blame the stores and businesses. I can point to a number of articles that spoke about how businesses were hurting Thanksgiving with all of the commercialism and yet never did I see anyone place the blame where it probably should be. Somewhere along the line I realized that without addicts, there would be no dealer, without "John's" there would be no prostitutes and without shoppers there would be no Thanksgiving day sales. Obviously people who will leave their families so that they can stand in a line on the hopes that their favorite video games will still be available at 40% off are missing some perspective on what's valuable. If I tell my family that I can't stay up for the Thanksgiving get-together because I need to get to sleep by 6:00pm so I can wake up at 3:00 am to get in line then I'm essentially telling my family how little they are worth. Yes it may cost a little more to not get punched, run over, disrespected, and generally frustrated by bait and switch tactics and those crazy enough to fall for them but can we at least admit one thing when it's all over. The problem with Black Friday and Thanksgiving sales are those consumers who attend them. The worst thing is, after going through all the pain of Black Friday sales, people find that had they just shopped normally, most of their items could have been purchased for what would amount to be a little more than they saved. What is peace of mind worth to you. This season of Advent is about waiting for something worth while. Jesus is coming but there is no quick line, or easy way to beat the system to get a better deal. We have to wait for him and what's more, the first person at church on Christmas morning gets the same deal as the person who walks in right before Communion. Jesus even said, "The first shall be last and the last shall be first." So much for the ad for a Heavenly sale I saw next to the Best Buy insert.
Psalm 25, To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.