Life is Like a Hard Chair

(Myrtle this one’s for you!)

Sometimes life is like a hard chair. I don’t mean a hard chair that looks like a hard chair. I mean one that looks soft and cushy- inviting, cozy and beautiful. One that you want to sit in. One that matches all your décor and you can just imagine yourself taking home and curling up in to read a good book by the fireplace. One that you dream about owning and stop to look at in the display window when you pass by.

One with the price tag that is so far out of reach that you don’t even bother to go in and try it on for a fit.

How’s that like life? How many of us watch others live the life we think we want for ourselves? Do we see others living seemingly extraordinary existences and somehow seem to belittle our own? We press our faces up against the display window of other’s lives and think “the price tag is too steep, we could never have what others have, but wouldn’t it be fabulous if we did?”

We want the chair badly, dream about the chair, talk about what it would be like to have the chair, hope that friends and family would buy the chair as a gift for us. All we can think about is how perfect that chair in the window would be if we had it. How comfortable, how pretty, how luxurious.

You know the problem with the chair in the window? IT’S HARD.

I’m not talking a little uncomfortable, either….I mean make your butt feel like your sitting on a 2 X 4 hard. I mean prickly splinters in the tushy hard. I mean achy legs and back hard. It is not the cushy comfort that we expect. Some would say perhaps not worth the price tag hard.

The sad thing is not that the chair is hard and uncomfortable, because many of the things in this world that are really worth having are such. The fact that it is not what you expected does not make it not worth having. The sad thing is that you spend so much time lusting after what you think is an easier, more comfortable, cozier existence, only to be disappointed by the reality when you get there. And even worse than that, you miss out on the fact that your “regular, ole average”, your “ordinary” chair with all its lumps and broken springs, is unique and individual and has character. It is comforting and warm and inviting….and maybe most important, accessible to the one’s you love. It is beautiful and timeless and far from ordinary.

When we focus on what other’s have it only leads us to ignore the beauty we have in our own lives. That’s not to say that you should ever stop reaching beyond your comfort zone….for beyond that edge is where real personal growth occurs. Just don’t spend your waking hours desiring a chair you’ve never sat in….at the very least, walk through the door and sit down, try it out…or take the leap and take it home with you….if you decide it is what God really wants for you life, then go get it…

However, in the meantime, grab a good book, light a fire in the fireplace, lovingly and thankfully pat that sturdy chair that you do have on the armrest…and….have a seat!