I have to admit that I was a late-comer to the TV show “24”. My first thought was who in the world would waste their precious time to watch a show about a person’s life, one hour at a time. It did not make sense to me. But after some coaxing and in the name of “date night,” I decided to watch it with Christina. We were able to get a hold of 3 seasons from “24”-fanatics in our church. Then after getting captivated (ok, ok, I am addicted) with the first 3 seasons, we finished watching season 4 right before the new season 5 started (now playing on TV).
This 5th season has been an interesting experience. After getting accustomed to watching the show whenever I wanted and how many episodes I wanted to see at any given time, I realized some important lessons about the Christian life.
I am realizing how hard it is to have an attitude of delayed gratification. God used this show to expose my lack of patience. After this Monday’s episode, I was getting so frustrated. Christina was wondering what was going on. When I told her it was because I do not want to wait for next Monday’s episode, she just rolled her eyes. For the last 4 seasons, I was the master of my own ship… I had the control… I was able to choose when I would stop or continue watching the show… the power was all mine (muhahaha)! After watching 16 episodes so far in season 5, I started to loathe the fact that I had to wait one whole week to watch the next hour.
I was no longer in control. I had to be patient. I had to wait. What makes this whole ordeal worse is when they show the next episode teasers (oh I hate that).
But is this not the Christian life? God is in control. We do not fully know the next episodes of our lives. We get frustrated and start to grow impatient because we want to “know.” We are powerless to run our own life. Can we fully trust God?
As Christina and I were about to go to sleep, she said, “You are too funny, I can’t believe you were getting all worked up over that.” As I thought about it, I realized that not knowing everything in life is part of the fun and the adventure. It keeps me coming back to God for more of Him, hour by hour!