Have we always been such a selfish society?

Q: It seems we are a society that wants love, but doesn’t think much about giving it in return. We are a selfish society. Has it always been this way? — B.G.

A: Years ago there was a hit song “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places.” Over 2,500 years ago the Prophet Isaiah looked out on a people who longed for happiness and security but were looking for it in the wrong places. They were running to the marketplace and to places of amusement, spending their money madly for things which brought them no permanent satisfaction.

Isaiah stood before them one day and gave them the Word of God, calling everyone who thirsted for real truth to consider the words of the Lord. Essentially he asked the people: “Are you getting what you want out of life?” If Isaiah were living today, he would probably stand at 42nd and Broadway in New York, in the Loop of Chicago, or on Market Street in San Francisco and simply ask the restless throngs: “Are you getting what you want? Are you finding satisfaction?”

He would ask the actress, surfeited with fame and fortune by peering out on life hungrily: “Are you getting what you want?” He might say to the successful financier who commands his industries: “Are you getting what you want?” He would say to people who have clever gadgets, the latest technology, and the most powerful automobiles: “Are you getting what you want?”

Isaiah did not leave the people of his day with unanswered questions. He told them to cease their vain searching for pots of gold at the end of mythical rainbows and to start searching for the blessings of God, found in the right relationship with God, who has declared: “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

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(This column is based on the words and writings of the late Rev. Billy Graham.)

©2020 Billy Graham Literary Trust. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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