I have a pretty beat-up desk chair in my classroom. It is really nothing special, just an old chair I don’t use anymore because it is uncomfortable for me. My students, however, love this chair.
“The Chair”
And I understand – compared to the hard plastic chairs they have, this one is pretty sweet.
Since I got a new chair, students will arrive to class early, just to sit in the old one. They will fight over it, argue over whose turn it is to have it. They are sure they do better work while sitting in “the chair”. It has become a prize and a good luck charm.
I was thinking about it this morning, as I watched students racing into my classroom, pushing each other out of the way to reach “the chair.” I thought of a favorite CS Lewis quote: “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
The chair is kind of like the “mud pies in the slum” Lewis is talking about. It seems great, compared to the alternative. But we all know this isn’t really the greatest chair. I’m sure my students all have chairs at home that are far nicer, far more comfortable. But, in the “world” of my classroom, this is as good as it gets.
Friends, we can have our “chairs” here (or our “mud pies”!) — things or people or experiences that we think are the greatest, that we will wait for and fight for and feel confident that they are the greatest in the world. But that’s just because our “worlds” are too small.
We are, as CS Lewis says, “far too easily pleased.” We can get so caught up in this world that we forget that this world is not our home. So we start to look for things or people or experiences to make us happy. In doing that, we miss out on the joy of living in the reality that we were made for so much more.
We have the offer of “infinite joy” – in knowing Christ and living for eternity. We have a purpose beyond this planet. We serve a God whose plans for us are inexpressibly marvelous. We don’t need to fight over things that really don’t matter.
What’s your “chair”? Maybe it’s good grades, or a boyfriend, college acceptance, popularity, or money, power…Take a good look at it. Is it really worth all the fighting and striving and stress to grab hold of? Will it truly bring you joy?
Let’s release the hold things of this world have on us, and live focused on what is truly valuable.
“I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 3:14
