“We need to think about moving to a single-story house!”
My wife heard me grunting as I walked up our flight of stairs to our bedroom. Over twenty years ago, I would race up and down the stairs, throwing caution to the wind. Now, I carefully ascend and descend, holding on to the banister. My balance is not as steady as before and if I were to fall, a fractured bone is a likely result. The logical solution is risk management. Single-story house. No more stairs!
Hold on! Ironically, I just reviewed a medical study on longevity that showed that the steepness of a village, was positively correlated with longevity. The steeper the roads and hills that one had to climb in a village, the longer one lived. In contrast to what my wife and I were contemplating, if I were to move out of our two-story home, it may actually be detrimental to my health!
There are many things that we may intuitively think would be a good thing to enhance our quality of life but is later revealed to be just the opposite. Remember margarine? To loosely paraphrase a prominent ad campaign touting the benefits of this butter substitute, I can’t believe it’s not good for you! We now know that many margarines are loaded with trans fats, a definite risk factor for heart disease. What may be initially pleasurable may ultimately be harmful. The evangelist Ravi Zacharias eloquently summarized the problem. “While pain can often be seen as a means to a greater end, pleasure is seen as an end in itself. And when pleasure has run its course, a sense of despondency can creep into one’s soul that may often lead to self-destruction. Pain can often be temporary, but disappointment in pleasure gives rise to emptiness-not just for a moment, but for life.”
There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death.
Proverbs 14:12 (NLT)
We try to make healthy decisions for ourselves, based upon the best available resources and how we pleasant we feel after putting it into motion. Yet, if left to our instincts, some of these decisions may lead to disaster, even death. Thanks be to God that He gives us the solution.
Fear of the LORD is a life-giving fountain; it offers escape from the snares of death.
Proverbs 14:27 (NLT)
Love and trust in the Lord; seek His will in your life.
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