If Only I have….

The other day my sister put on her blackberry dp “Don’t let the thoughts of the grass on the other side stop you from enjoying the taste of yours”. I found it so profound and it got me thinking some more J. The fact is not whether the grass is truly greener on the other side or not – and let’s face it few times it will – what is more important is how it affects your life today. In this fast paced world of ours, we can get so obsessed with what we don’t have, that we can’t take a moment to enjoy the things we have.

Before I continue let me clear a few things upfront. First, this is not about been thankful – that’s a topic for another dayJ. Secondly, I don’t believe there is anything wrong in admiring God’s goodness in the life of others, or desiring to have something better for yourself. We should all have aspirations and dreams. My intent is to draw attention to a subtle menace that I believe is one of the enemy’s key strategies to derailing God’s children from their original purpose. It is what I call “if only…” syndrome. This is about tying your joy to when you achieve the next milestone in life or acquire a certain item or worse still if you are in someone else’s situation. I know only very few people get to this point, but it usually starts slowly and before one knows it, it escalates to an obsession. Do you compare yourself with others and always believe the other person has it better than you. Are you constantly saying “if only I have/I can …”.

Let me illustrate my point with a true story of a man called Ham*. Ham had it all, wealth, fame, power, and influence you name it, and he had it. Even the President of the country could not make decisions without his ok. No man dared argue with him, well almost no one because there was just one of the president’s “stubborn” gate keepers who will just not suck up to him (really in the scheme of things this gate keeper was so insignificant that he was not even known to the president). You will expect that Ham would be the happiest man alive since he lacked nothing. Guess what, he was not, and the reason was just this one gate keeper, he actually was quoted to say, “all that I have and all I have achieved gives me no joy as long as this gate keeper is alive. The more he talked about it, the more he became upset until a point when he confided in a friend. The friend had a great idea, why not have this guy eliminated; after all, if he can talk back at you in front of you, who knows, maybe he is plotting your death. And that’s how it started, Ham’s journey to destruction, by the time it all ended, he was sentenced to death approved by the same president that so loved him.  What went wrong, how could a man who had it all lose it all just because of a simple gatekeeper he could have ignored and still been the most prominent individual in the society. The answer is simple, Ham allowed the one thing he did not have (respect of the gatekeeper) affect the taste of everything else he owned.

Dear friend, don’t let the enemy steal your joy by making you focus on the grass at the other side. Have you ever wondered that of all the possibly thousands of trees in the Garden of Eden it was the one tree that God had asked man not to eat of that man focused on. The enemy simply convinced them that was the most important one and that believe cost mankind paradise.

Remain Blessed

* The story is just an abridged version of Haman story. Read the full account in Esther chapters 4-7.