Not knowing when to stop

We human beings seem to find it impossibly hard to know when to stop. We cannot identify the point in time when enough is enough - except with hindsight!

For example:

• the banks lending mortgages to those who couldn't afford to repay, and eventually going bust
• people seeking sexual gratification in more and more extreme ways, and wrecking their relationships and reputation along the way
• a 'rogue trader' betting on the stock market and jeopardising the very survival of their firm
• the gambler, drinker, smoker or drug addict not knowing when it's time to quit, until it's too late
• an elderly person not letting go of some independence to accept needed care, and ending up having decisions taken out of their hands when the inevitable crisis arises
• all of us continuing to emit greenhouse gases, and causing irreparable damage to the world's climate.

They are all forms of addiction - for money, excitement, control, independence - and they thrive on the fantasies:

• that we are wiser than we actually are
• that we will be able to spot some point in the future when it's time to stop
• that we can always change our minds later, if or when we need to
• or blind optimism that 'something will turn up' or that a solution is 'just around the corner'.

We are just not very good at knowing when enough is enough.

You may not be a rogue trader or a problem drinker, and so dismiss the gross examples above as not applying to you. But for the same reasons we all put off saying to God, "we've sinned, please have mercy on us!", thinking that we can always get right with Him at some (indeterminate) future time, 'before it's too late'.

Umm. Really?

The Bible says:
“All people are like grass,
and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures forever.”
(Isaiah 40 v6-8, NIV)