I am a thrill of the chase kind of guy.  I have only recently understood this within the past year or two.  Maybe you are as well?  What gives you more joy?  The process or the end result?  How do you feel you best #WINtheNOW?  As you are trying to achieve or purchase or accumulate?  Or after you are done?

Whether it be completing a triathlon or buying a new car or planning a vacation, I think it is a good exercise to examine our motives and our feeling throughout the process.  Have you ever bought something after a ton of research and waiting only to find out that thing you wanted so badly and worked so hard towards didn’t really do it for you when you got it in hand?

I certainly have.  I have been duped all my life.  I have chased baseball cards and photos through auctions and eBay and the adrenaline that goes along with it and then when the item comes, it sits on a shelf.  I did months of training for an Ironman Triathlon and then I was at the finish line with the medal.  OK.  Great.  But not what I thought it might be.

If your purchases and goals have ever let you down, you might be someone who is more in it for the chase than the thing itself.  It is great to chase.  It is great to have goals.  Don’t hear what I am not saying.  What I am saying is to examine your motives and see if it is all worth it.  If it is more about the process, then enjoy the process and experience it for what it is.  If it is for the end result, then know that and be ready for that enjoyment.

Because if you are always chasing and ending up disappointed or feeling lacking in the end, you are a chaser.  And if what you are really chasing is true contentment, you won’t find it in more stuff.

We serve a God who wants us to be content.  Who wants us to have joy AND happiness.  Who has our best interests in mind.  Be careful and mindful the times we put something else in God’s place and sabotage our contentment and our joy.

The thrill of the chase.  Are you a chaser?