It All Ends up as Poo…

There are a lot of distractions in life. There are a lot of things that seem so sweet and tempting to have or to experience. As the world has moved more and more into a fast food culture of getting quick results when you want them (“Click this!” “Check out this 5 second clip!”), it is becoming harder to have will power and to keep focused on what is truly good.

When Moses went up the mountain to meet with the Lord to get the 10 Commandments, his time on the mountain took longer than what the people expected. They became anxious and demanded for Aaron to make them gods that they could see and worship (just like all the idols they had grown up seeing in Egypt). Aaron obliged and they made a golden calf to represent their god and they worshiped it. When Moses saw what they had done he was filled with anger. Exodus 32:20 reads – “He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.”

That beautiful golden calf that had just hours earlier been the god the people of Israel were worshiping had now likely become bad diarrhea. It had clearly become excrement. What had been so glorious and alluring to the Israelites was now a smelly mess, likely also causing pain and discomfort to their bodies.

Everything we do outside of God’s will is poo in the end. It might be really tempting to go your own way and ignore God’s counsel, perhaps give in to a sin or choose a course of life that you know God doesn’t have planned for you. It’s not going to end well though. I’ve never met someone who got horrible food poisoning later say, “Yeah, but the meal was worth it.” The meal definitely tasted okay when it was being eaten, but the amount of pain in the end far outweighed whatever joy there originally was.

Philippians 3:8 – Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish (in the Greek: refuse/animal excrement) in order that I may gain Christ.

I think God made our digestive system to show that as great as things of this world can be, in the end it’s all poo that should be flushed away. It’s the things of the spiritual, the things of God, that last forever. Love, joy, and peace are eternal; none of them grow stale, moldy, or rusty. God has given us different things here on earth to enjoy as we go through life, but in the end our greatest joy will be found walking with Him, knowing Him more, and loving others.

Choose what really lasts. You won’t regret it.