What Do We Chase After?

 

“Whoever pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity and honor.”

—Proverbs 21:21

Quite a number of years ago, I overheard a conversation while waiting for a table in a restaurant. Two gentlemen were watching the wide screen TV when a particular advertisement came on that showed a beautiful woman putting her arms around a man. One man said to the other, “I hate that commercial!”

“Really? Why?” the second man replied.

“It reminds me that no woman has ever pursued me in that way,” came the quick answer.

This conversation caused me to ponder about the state of our interpersonal relationships. And, even more so, it caused me to ask myself, “What do we chase after?”

If we are to believe the advertising on television, or the commentary on talk radio, or the articles in glitzy magazines, people in our culture pursue quite a number of selfish and quite temporal things. They pursue personal gratification through wealth, property, and even through their interpersonal relationships. It seems that such pursuit is rarely about others and more than often solely about them and their perceived needs.

King Solomon takes an entirely different viewpoint when he expresses these words found in Proverbs 21:21:

Whoever pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity [or righteousness] and honor.

Solomon believes there are far more important things in this life to pursue than those things that might satisfy only for a moment. He suggests that pursuing righteousness and God-breathed love will result in finding true life. In other words, what life is really all about, as well as prosperity—or, in some manuscripts, righteousness—and honor. Imagine that! The way to find honor is to pursue righteousness and God-breathed love.

As we start off through another day, we should examine what we’re pursuing. Are we running after only things that might satisfy for a moment? Or, are we pursuing really important things that will last for eternity?

The answer should prompt us to either continue on the best pathway, or make a course correction this very day.

 

_{Copyright © 2017 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

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