What Everyone Wants

What everyone wants…

I have an idea about what everyone wants and some ideas that if people get what they think they want they’ll never get what they really want. It’s ironic, but let me explain, starting with a few questions?.

What was your favorite part of Christmas when you were a child? Was it Christmas eve, Christmas Morning or Christmas afternoon? Did it change when you got older, when you were in your teens and twenties? If you’re older now, has it changed since you were young?

When I was a boy my favorite part of Christmas was Christmas morning. That’s when our family opened presents. We had gone to Church the evening before and then come home to go to bed and I was too excited to sleep, so I  thought. But morning would come and I’d open my eyes to run into the living room where the Christmas tree was to find presents. I’d have to wait for my mom and grandparents to wake up, as we always had Christmas with them, and they’d roll out of bed happy and exited too, but for different reasons than me, or so it seemed. I was excited for what I’d get and they were excited to see me open presents, sometimes with cousins. Their joy wasn’t in what they got for Christmas, it was in what they gave for Christmas. But what was exciting was the hope and expectation.

As I grew older I began to think less about what I was getting to what everyone was doing and the joy of opening presents all around. Christmas eve and Christmas morning were the best, as there was the excitement of looking forward to the presents. Christmas afternoon and evening were nice, but not as bright and exciting. There was dinner and putting the gifts to use or in closets or drawers for later. The day after Christmas was often dull.

I’ve met a lot of people who loved either Christmas eve or Christmas morning. But most people are not nearly as excited about Christmas afternoon and evening.

Why is this something to think about? Because so many people want to have things for themselves. They dream of big homes or cars or the next gadget they can get. They dream of getting a new computer or a romance or the excitement of getting on a sports team or into a group that they admire or feel left out of. They look to have things or good relationships,  but the reality of actually having them is not nearly as good as the hope that drives people, in many cases. There are exceptions.

When hope, which is always exciting, turns into love then the joy continues even after the excitement of hope is gone. Of course, in order to have real hope we have to have faith that there is a possibility of what we hope for happening. Otherwise our hopes are in vain. If we hope to get $50,000.00 for a used bicycle with no tires we’re not being realistic. If we hope to get a job as a professional but don’t have any education or skills we are not going to be happy job hunting. If we hope to get into a great university but we are not studying in the school where we are already enrolled we are going to be very disappointed.

I think that this is one of the reasons that there are so many people who are unhappy and depressed today. They either have nothing to hope for or they hope for things that they certainly will not have. But they have been falsely promised to hope for things that are unrealistic or that cannot bring any joy at all, but only failure or suffering.

Take, for example, the case of a young man I know. He is a handsome and skilled person. He had a wife and children and a good job. But he hoped to get more money so he was enticed to start selling drugs. He could buy them from a higher level drug dealer and sell them to his friends for a nice profit. He started with just a few friends and made some money. He liked the easy transactions and the relative safety of what he was doing. Those friends started recommending him to others and he got quite a lucrative business going, so much so that he decided that he was wasting his time at his former job and started full time on getting drugs and selling them to his friends and their friends.

One evening he had a large order to deliver to a group of people he had done business with before and he trusted. He went to the pre-arranged place to do the transaction. He got out of his car, sure of himself and carrying a large bag. He was expecting a $50,000.00 profit from this and he was really excited. He drove down a suburban street to a  quiet neighborhood with a park. He saw their car parked in a little parking lot and pulled in beside their car and got out with the bag, and a big smile on his face. Several young men exited the other car. Suddenly one of the men showed him a pistol and pointed it at his head. He froze with fear and two of the other men pulled large carving knives from their jackets. He turned to run and got a few feet when he heard a gunshot. The bullet whizzed by his head and he lunged for the nearby grass. He was there only a moment when he saw red and blue lights flashing and law enforcement vehicles entering the parking lot. He ran to his car, started it  and tried to drive out of the parking lot, leaving the drug bag in the grass. As he sped up a police car drove into the lot and he hit the police car with his car.

He and the other men were arrested. He knew his life was forever changed. He spent some time in jail and then prison. While there his wife divorced him and his friends deserted him. When he finally got out on probation he was alone. He had nowhere to go but his mother’s house and so he tried to live there. His father had died and she was living with another man. He and they didn’t get along and they threw him out.  He got a temporary job doing manual labor outside cutting trees and doing heavy work for a gardener, but there were drugs and alcohol there and he knew if he stayed he’d go back to prison for breaking his parole.

He’s still homeless as I write this. He lives hundreds of miles away, so all I can do is send him a few dollars for food. He’s living in the back of a broken down truck on the property of a rancher who has taken pity on him. But all he gets is a place to park his truck and water to drink and wash himself. He has to walk into town to buy a sandwich or other necessities.

This is what happens with false hope. This is what happens with having faith in just yourself and in people who don’t have your best interest at heart.

The opposite of this is a very simple story. In the early 2000s I was stationed in a parish in Ventura, CA. My first Saturday evening there I was celebrating the Vigil Mass. I noticed a little rambunctious boy who kept running up the side aisle. Then I saw his dad get up and gently pick him up and bring him back. This happened 5 or 6 times during the readings. I thought to myself: “That’s what God has done with me all my life. I try to run, not knowing where I am going and He just comes after me and brings me home.” I’m still friends with that family 22 years later. The boy is not in missionary work and his dad is still in law enforcement.

There are people in our lives who we can count on and trust. They do have our best interest at heart. But they, like all human beings, cannot and should not watch over us at all times and rescue us from every situation we get into. But there is One who can and does. He is the Lord. I hope and trust that He is still coming after me when I decide to go the wrong direction. I hope and trust He is doing the same with you!

We can want “things”, but I’ve learned what I really want is Him coming for me. In the end that’s all that matters. With that it’s always either Christmas eve or early Christmas morning. There is that hope that gives joy!