Produce > Consume

There is no greater change of role in this big world than that from consumer to producer. From our first breath, to our last, the natural condition of life is to consume. Call it sin or call it the human condition. Either way, we are consumers through and through. All religions, at their core, work against this instinct. They push practitioners to contemplate their default and consciously attempt to swim upstream, against the current of the natural. To be religious (or wise) is to battle against yourself, waging war against consuming. In hope, we look to produce more than we consume.

Consumption goes deeper than mere materialism. Consumption says that all of life’s avenues lead back to my own satisfaction. Of course, anyone who has spent any amount of time chasing satisfaction will tell you that at the end of its dark trek is nothing more than a Trojan horse. Addictions and debt are spawned from the delusion one can be satisfied through earthly means.

Beer leads to wine. Wine leads to hard drink. Escalation leads to further frustration.

Amazon orders arrive on our doorstep within two days, eventually we want everything now (and with free shipping).

This cry for more comes from our deepest need to be completed. This need is natural and pure. However, when we seek to fill it, we must be aware of what roads we take to get to completion.

Logically, it makes sense. We have the ache within us shouting for sustained joy. And so we search. We find something to fill the need. We place it gently in, working for a time maybe, then the need for more creeps in. We hit rock bottom, or we move on to something else.

And thus the dance continues.

Yet in this world of deferred dreams, there is another way. To produce is to align our soul to a creative God – to mimic the divine and partner in the handiwork of a savior. God itself is outside of this endless, mounting, cycle. As image bearers of a master craftsman, we are to create, produce, and protect. When we trade in our spirit of consumption for a more noble way, we find a peace that only comes from cutting ties with the things that hold us back. The trinkets of this world only insulate us from peace and the radical love of a life well lived.

Today, produce. Not for identity or acceptance, but from the joy of being in agreement with something greater.