Why wait 'til later for what you can have now?
Jennie Harmer
We live in a consumer culture. More and more, we demand that we get what we want, and we want it NOW! Advertisements manipulate this desire within all of us to be satisfied immediately without waiting, and often without paying. "Buy now, pay later" is a phrase which frequently calls to us temptingly from our TVs, particularly those annoying sofa adverts. Junk mail offers us interest free loans, credit cards galore; we are bombarded with adverts for fast food, instant credit and the majority of us, as the slogan suggests, are "lovin' it".
And this desire for getting what we want now doesn't just affect material possessions. It's also about feeling good now. The growth of Britain's binge drinking and drugs culture suggests that we all want to get that high, however short-lived it may be and whatever the emotional and physical cost later. And this isn't a new idea either; the Greeks, the original hedonists, coined the now famous slogan, "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die". We've just taken it a step further: eat, drink and be merry then get liposuction. Maybe tomorrow we'll diet.
We are encouraged to think that if something is important or worthwhile, we should get it NOW. (Even the Guinness ad campaign which claimed that "good things come to those who wait" was only suggesting we should have to wait 30 seconds for the perfect pint.) At root, this impatience is a form of selfishness, which puts ourselves first, and before others, which is the opposite of what the Bible teaches us.
The one thing people don't want now is to have to think about the future and the serious stuff like where we go when we die and what's life all about anyway? We'd rather not have to face these issues. And that's the one thing we should be thinking about now.
Jesus told the crowds in John 6, "do not labour for the food that perishes but for food that endures to eternal life." All the things we buy now and do now to make ourselves feel good will not last. And as this life is not the end, we need to invest in something which we may not be able to have fully now, but which will last forever. Jesus declared, "I am the Bread of Life, whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall not thirst." He goes on to say, "whoever believes has eternal life". And it really is worth waiting for!