What in the world is destination addiction and how does it steal my joy?

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Psalm 118:24 “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

I love autumn...cooler temperatures, college football, and the leaves changing color. Those colors speak to me about the beauty of growth and transition and are, to me, the best feature of autumn.

Each year when the colors are at their peak, Harry and I pick the nicest day and go for a picnic on Mount Cheaha, the highest point in Alabama. It’s a tradition to climb up into the observation tower to see the leaves for miles, but not this year.

Between doctors and taking care of other “important” things, that week slipped away. The first chance we had to go was Tuesday of the following week. So there we went with our picnic lunch and coffee in the thermos all the way out to Mount Cheaha.

Oh, No! We knew the colors wouldn’t be at their peak anymore, but we didn’t realize the colors would all be gone! How could that happen in just a few short days? We ate our sandwiches and drove back home, disappointed but perhaps a little wiser.

That disappointment was a perfect example of “Destination Addiction,” that tendency to tell ourselves that when this or that happens, we’ll feel better, think better, do better. When I have a better job, I’ll be content. When I have less things on my “to do” list, I’ll take a day off. When my prodigal comes home, I’ll be happy.

The problem with that, of course, is that we’re making everything in our lives contingent on something or someone else. While there’s nothing wrong with wanting those things, can we not find joy in our lives unless we get what we want?

I had a similar experience using “Timehop” this morning. Timehop is a charming app that looks back at pictures or comments you posted on Facebook a year ago or even five years ago. You can repost them and show what you were doing or saying on this day a year or more ago.

November 25th must have been a tough day for me in years past because I had a hard time finding something worth posting…no pictures of family get-togethers, no pix of kids visiting us or us visiting them…no sweet, nostalgic posts like that. Then I read what my “gratitude” post was for that day two years ago and was astounded.

It was full of gratitude for the simple things…a friend who came for Thanksgiving, a phone call from my life-long best friend, a sweet message from my son, and the beauty and smells of autumn. All of them were parts of a full life teeming with things to be grateful for.

Being grateful doesn’t mean everything in our lives is perfect. It doesn’t reunite us with our spouse or bring the prodigal home or heal the broken relationships in our family. But it gives us the chance to focus on what we do have rather than on what we wish we had.

And if those things you’re praying for don’t happen for you, then what? Are you willing to spend the rest of your life being miserable? Or will you choose to focus on the things you do have and, in doing it, get back some of your joy?

Challenge for Today: What might happen if we, just for today, made a conscious decision to rejoice in this day God has given us?