Tinfoil Love

My second favorite book, aluminum (or aluminium for the British!), and the cleverly short-sighted trash panda.

This week, we learn to let go.

"Remember, you are loved, so go, love better!"

New episodes drop on Tuesdays.

Transcript

TINFOIL LOVE

I’m Scott Beyer and this is the Love Better podcast where we explore the truths and lies about love and more importantly how to turn love into a skill – something we can get better at and hone along the way.

Today, is going to be a little bit different.  If the following episode sounds familiar, it is likely because you have heard a version of it from when I filled in for my good friend B.J. Sipe on his podcast, “Set Your Mind Above”.

If it doesn’t sound familiar – then you definitely need to go listen to “Set Your Mind Above” and subscribe to his podcast.  And while you are at it, go over and listen to his wife, Kylie Sipe’s, podcast ;’Called & Worthy.’

B.J. asked me to fill in for him a year or so ago and speak about love.  In some ways, you might consider this the prequel to the Love Better podcast.  I hope you find it a blessing.

I have an old worn-out copy of a fiction book that sits on my bookshelf.  It is one of the few fiction books with a permanent place in my library.

I read it when I was a boy until it was dog-eared. Found myself picking it up again as a teenager on my low days, and since then I've reread it as an adult out of nostalgia and read it to my kids who have to endure their fathers ever buoyant love of the novel.

The book is, Where The Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls.  The book is about a boy named Billy, two Red Bone Coon Hounds named Old Dan and Little Anne and it is full of everything every little boy could ever want.

Tramping barefoot through the Ozarks, hunting for coons, wading through rivers, chopping down trees with your own ax, making fires, camping, and being outdoors – these were the things that appealed to me as a boy… I mean, I still take walks barefoot and enjoy my neighbors looking at me funny.

Somehow this book wormed its way into my heart in other ways too, that have affected me over the years, there is something very sweet and real and profound about the book.

At one point in the book, Billy has to catch a raccoon so he can use that raccoon to train his hounds how to hunt. There’s a frustrating circular logic to it. He needs a raccoon so he can catch raccoons, and in the end, his grandfather teaches him a trick, which I have researched and found actually works.  

To catch a coon, you find a good sturdy log, and then you drill a hole in end of it. After you have a decent hole auger-ed out of the end, drive some nails in at the edges.  The nails need to almost, but not quite touch each other – kind of like spokes on a wheel with the spikes all nearly touching each other at the center of the hole.  Then last, very carefully, place a ball of tinfoil at the very back of the hole you just drilled.

See it turns out raccoons love shiny things, and when they see the tinfoil, they will open their paw, snake it in amongst the nails, and seize the tinfoil in their tiny little trash panda fist. But with their paw all balled up, they won't be able to back out past those nails.

So they're left with two choices

#1 Drop the tinfoil and escape. Simple enough.

#2 or hold on, and face the hunter.

The wise decision is to let go, but the average raccoon is just too attached to the shiny aluminum to do it. Raccoons might be quite clever, they're also a little shortsighted.  They are clever enough to get the tinfoil, but dumb enough to love it.

I can honestly tell you, I think about that tinfoil and that raccoon almost every day of my life.  And I often have to ask myself – am I the raccoon?  Have I fallen in love with tinfoil, again?

In the book of Ecclesiastes – the wisest man to walk the earth, Solomon describes the tinfoil love problem like this

"Vanity of vanities! All is vanity." What advantage does man have in all his work Which he does under the sun? A generation goes and a generation comes, But the earth remains forever. Also, the sun rises and the sun sets; And hastening to its place it rises there [again.] Blowing toward the south, Then turning toward the north, The wind continues swirling along; And on its circular courses the wind returns.  All the rivers flow into the sea, Yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, There they flow again.  All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell [it.] The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor is the ear filled with hearing. (Eccl 1:2-8)

Solomon recognized that his life was full of tinfoil… and I suspect there may be some in yours too. And to make matters worse, not only is there tinfoil in our life… everyone's trying to sell us more tinfoil, too.

Get a better car or a larger house, or the newest, most cutting edge telephone. You gotta keep up with the latest fashions or the newest shows on TV that everybody's going to be talking about, or the latest restaurant that everybody's eating at.

There is a reason that we as human beings feel so driven all the time. Maybe just maybe, all of us should take a beat and ask, “Who is doing the driving?” I don't think it's God.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul warns them about those, “whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.” Sounds like that raccoon to me.  He’s in the trap, but he is convinced, CONVINCED, that he’s the winner because look at this amazing glimmer ball I’ve got.  I’m the fanciest raccoon in the forest!

What happens to us when we become caught up in all that shiny stuff.  It doesn't lead us to joy, and it doesn't lead us to Jesus. It leads us instead to a new god called consumption. Our end is destruction just like that, clever and short-sighted raccoon – because we’ve fallen in love with earthly things, and convinced ourselves that living a life driven by those appetites will eventually fulfill us.  But it is all a giant, tinfoil lie.

In the very next verse, Philippians 3:20, Paul continues to say, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,”

That’s the antidote. I love what Philippians 3:20 says, being a citizen in heaven, I love the idea that I can set my mind above and that Jesus is my savior, and that eventually I will be in heaven where everything will be lovely and perfect.  Philippians 3:20 is a beautiful verse… but there is one word in that verse that I really don't like too much, and that word is ‘await’. Await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. The only way to get past the tinfoil is to learn to ‘await’, because the real stuff, the heavenly stuff, is going to be a little bit of a wait.

For those listeners that don't know me, I've got eight kids. That is a number of children, which when I say it out loud, most people think they misheard me and ask me to say it again. And I will tell you that when you have eight kids, they all have to learn to wait because I'm busy and my wife is busy, and it probably ain't gonna be your turn for a while.

See, waiting is a skill in life that my kids have had to learn. And let me tell you what isn't waiting:

Waiting doesn't look like bugging me every two minutes OR whining and groaning under your breath the whole time OR picking on somebody else because you're bored, and you're frustrated. It also doesn't look like trying to cut in line so you can get your thing taken care of sooner.

Do you know what waiting looks like? Waiting looks a lot like contentment. In 1 Timothy chapter six, Paul will say in verse six, “but godliness with contentment is a great gain. We brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world, but if we have food and clothing with these, we will be content.”

Tinfoil love is discontent, I need more stuff or experiences or attention so that I can fill a void. Contentment is the exact opposite of that sort of greed. A content soul is just at peace with where things are right now. In addition to contentment being a proper perspective on love and life… contentment is a really good companion of joy. Contentment lets you be at peace with where you are so you can enjoy where you are.

Do you know that studies show that after about 60,000 a year, any increase in household income above that doesn't make any measurable positive impacts on the quality of life. Watching a sunset looks just as pretty from a park bench as it does from Jeff Bezos’ yacht.  If anything, the tinfoil might get in the way of the view.

After all, Ecclesiastes 5:12 says, “Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep.”

Too much prosperity can inhibit joy if we aren’t carefully – especially if that prosperity is hoarded and loved like a giant Scrooge McDuck pile of tinfoil.

Excess income doesn’t measurably impact joy… but you know what does make a measurable impact?  Service. Putting time and energy into others. Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” And He was right. And if we live by faith, we know He's right, and we ought to live like He's right and trust Him. Ephesians 2:10 says, “we're created in Christ Jesus for good works.”

Find someone to buy lunch for and then tell them Jesus loves them. Give the tinfoil away. Find a neighbor, mow their grass. Read a book to your kid. Or take a break and hold your newborn. Visit the elderly, give lavishly, write someone a nice note. Take the directory, pray for a family in your congregation each day. Believe me, when you start giving the tin foil away and finding contentment in service, the whole thing starts to make sense again, because remember, Solomon said it's all vanity.

And Paul warned against the god of your belly and how it is never EVER satisfied.  And Jesus. He told us to enlighten our eyes and find the blessing in giving. You are made to love, just not tinfoil.

Let it go.  Learn to love without the tinfoil.

If you've listened this far, hopefully we've done something to help make your life a little bit better.  Would you mind returning the favor and helping us by subscribing to the podcast through your favorite platform?

By sharing with others or leaving a review on Apple Podcast, you help us reach more people. Also, if you want more information about the work I'm doing at Eastland, visit us at eastlandchristians.org or my personal Bible site, Biblegrad.com, where you can sign up for daily Bible devotionals called Biblebites and receive them in your email each morning, take online Bible classes, or find videos that will help you study through the Bible throughout the year.

And until next time, “Remember, you are loved, so go… love better.”