He is insane; why listen to Him?

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.  John 10:10 

So when Nicole was fourteen-years-old, her Grandpa Voelkel had her memorize the Westminster Shorter Catechism. It was a period of transition for Nicole.  She was shedding a little bit of her missionary kid dorkiness, Mr. Tvrdy had lent her his shoes for her first cross-country race ever when she lapped all the boys as well, and one of those vaguely suspicious modeling agencies had found her somewhere and pressed their card into her hand and begged her to come by and check them out.  So, I mean she was a fourteen-year-old girl and this was the dream and so they lined her up with some rather tedious gigs that involved a lot of time hanging around in back rooms watching nervous women re-line their lips in three shades of red and just a little bit of time draped in doorways or peeking through windows while cameras clicked.  And it was ok but not great.

But then this agency brought in this fancy-fine photographer from L. A. Models and paid him to create a portfolio and they offered to fly her to Florida for some national search and Ford Modeling was offering a 100,000 dollar contract for a year in New York City and they had some lady who would take care of her and make sure she would do her homework and go to cultural events like plays and the opera and here is the dotted line.  

And then Nicole’s mother had one of her crazy words-from-God from Numbers and Balaam and the ass and somehow it meant not to settle for God’s second-best for her and Nicole was ok with that if that is what God said, which is actually fairly shocking when one considers the gold baubles being dangled.  

So Nicole met with the photographer one more time and looked over the portfolio and her lower lip was a tiny bit too full but that was ok because the mode was about to shift away from tiny frail models to lean athletic models and she was perfect.  And Nicole said that she had changed her mind and that she wasn’t interested.  And he absolutely could not wrap his mind around it.  And he came out of the room and tried to reason with her mother.  He said, “I told her she could have everything.  She could do anything she wanted.  Even if she decided to drop out after one year, she would still have all that money for college.  And I looked her in the eye, and asked, “What do you want out of life?  You can have it all!” 

And Nicole, her grandfather’s daughter said, “I want to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

And the nice photographer shook his head, gave me his card, and packed up his bags for Los Angeles.

And that is why He came.  

If I mutter and complain it is indeed a grievous sin.  He is not enough.  It is a public declaration that I am seeking outside of Him.  And when I step into this joy it is a declarative  statement of His goodness and faithfulness and abundance.  


And it glorifies God.  

And that is the chief end of man.  

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