Deconstruction of the American Dream (But that doesn't make me some kind of socialist)

I don't know if its something they fed us as babies, or if it was subliminal messages on the television while we watched Fraggle Rock, but somehow we have grown up desiring the American Dream.

Ah the American Dream, the name we have assigned to our endless desire for that one thing more that will bring contentment... that one last thing that will bring us endless joy.

I thought I was immune to it, just like we all did. We realized its emptiness, and mocked its ability to control those around us. But not us... it wouldn't get us!

Until the day we find we're the crazy ones, holding a strainer under a running sink wondering why it never fills.

Oh to have all the things we have been told we need to be content and complete. Wealth, a good job, a loving spouse, obedient and beautiful kids... Or that one more thing to fill the void we can't name and fear to speak of.

I can't tell who told me about this dream, or who put it in my mind that I need these things. All the same there is this drive in me, this force that tells me I need them and mourns that each of them escapes my grasp.

I'm left with two options, either I am not a good American or the American Dream is not the thing that will complete me.

I risk being preachy by what I am going to say next, but it needs to be said all the same:

None of these things are ever going to make us complete. It is human nature that none of it will ever be enough. We are gluttons who are never full! We always want more. Happiness is always over the next hill, and we seek it out relentlessly. We're fooling ourselves.

I do not have the American Dream, and its not really in my grasp. I thank God for that. Its not a coping mechanism, but a firm grasp on reality, that leads me to say that I don't need any of those things to feel complete.

If I never get married. If I never have a job that provides retirement, insurance, paid vacations, and a cool title that will impress people. If I never have children. If I never have a nice house. If I never have enough money to buy a big screen TV to see Die Hard in all its seventy inch glory... All the same:
Christ has looked on me and seen my sin, seen my shame, seen my hopelessness and through humiliation, suffering, and death, has carved the only way to end my pain and bring me to eternal hope. I am a son of God, born not from flesh and blood but singularly from His will. I am a sinner who has been saved by grace and it counted righteous because Christ has made satisfaction for me, taking the death I deserved that I might share in His glory. I have been crucified with Christ and resurrected into a living hope. No matter what happen in this life that can never be taken away from me. What is left for me to dream for that is greater than that?

What need is there that the Lord cannot provide for a hundred times over? Nothing. So even if it makes me a bad American I have stopped going after the American dream, do my best (by His grace) to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.

Amen.

None of this is to say that jobs or relationships, or material possessions are bad or not worth taking a part in. They cannot be an end unto themselves. These blessings God gives to us should point us towards Him, not to our own indulgences and self gratification.
God help us all... and He who is faithful, surely will complete the work He has begun in us.