Mirage

Sometimes your expectations of something don't quite match up with reality.

When I was in third grade, I started playing in a baseball league, and as I began my athletic career, I had dreams of greatness. I could picture myself chasing down fly balls and making spectacular diving catches in the outfield. I envisioned myself standing in the batter's box with my baseball cap on backwards like Ken Griffey Jr., swinging the bat with power and watching the ball soar over the left field fence. I'm pretty sure I even practiced my home run trot in my basement, just so it would look natural when I had to do it in a game.

But then the season actually began, and it didn't take me long to realize that I wasn't really that good at baseball. In fact, I was pretty terrible. I could hit home runs. In fact, I couldn't even hit the ball. Most of my at-bats ended with the umpire signaling a strikeout. And while I was a decent fielder, I also discovered that not many third-graders had the power to hit it into the outfield, so most of my time was spent standing out there watching the game instead of really playing in it.

I had these lofty expectations of what my life as a baseball player might look like. But once I started playing, I found that those expectations probably wouldn't happen. The reality wasn't nearly as glamorous as I had imagined.

Lately I have been reading the book of Jeremiah, which is possibly my favorite of the prophetic books. A few days ago I ran across a short phrase that I found particularly interesting. Jeremiah 3:23 is written from the point of view of the repentant Israelites, and and here's what it says:

Surely the hills are a delusion.

In order to understand this statement, I guess it's important to know what Jeremiah is talking about when he speaks of the hills. In Israel at that time, the hilltops were locations of idolatrous shrines. That's where pagan worship took place. Most of the book of Jeremiah shows how, because of Israel's idolatry, they were taken off into captivity by the Babylonians. But here, in a vision of Israel's turning back to God, they admit that those hilltops were a delusion. The Israelites had hoped to find happiness or fulfillment there, but all they found was emptiness.

That's how idolatry of any sort works, I think. With our world's modern-day idols, we expect to gain something great from them. We hope for satisfaction and contentment, security and safety. But those idols never deliver. And so a person might seek security in their wealth, but it only takes a turn in the market for that safety net to fall apart. Or a person might lean on a relationship for all of his strength, but those relationships don't bring total fulfillment. Another may depend on prestige and status in order to gain his identity, but before long someone else is the next big thing. Our world today is dealing with the same problems as the Israelites in Jeremiah's day. We look for meaning in all the wrong places, and all we end up with are delusions and unmet expectations.

When I think of something being a "delusion," it reminds me of the cartoons where a character is traveling through the desert in the hot son, thirsty for water, when he sees an oasis on the horizon. He runs toward the palm trees and lagoon at full speed, and then he dives headfirst into the ice cold water, only to crash into just another sand dune. He discovers that the oasis had only been a mirage. A delusion. A promise that couldn't deliver.

It can be so easy to spend life chasing mirages. We run after the counterfeit instead of the real. But the actual source of fulfillment is waiting for us. The true God of the Bible isn't just another mirage. He's the real deal. He delivers. He's the God who "satisfies the longing soul" (Ps. 107:9). And for this reason, Jesus can declare, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink" (Jn. 7:37). The invitation of God is to stop running after the delusions, to stop chasing the mirages, to stop believing the lies, and instead to come find life and rest and satisfaction in him, because that's the only place it really can be found.

We weren't made to swallow sand.

We were designed to drink water.

And that tastes so much better.