So, got another example of how second things become first things and destroy both the first thing AND the second thing. I started smoking a pipe. Nothing morally wrong with that I don't think. However, I can't just enjoy the occasional pipe now and again, no, I have to stay up late at night for at least a week reading all about pipes and pipe smoking. I have to think and breathe all things pipe for a few weeks till something else dispels it's place in my heart. I'm not sure where this one came from. I think part of it is good. Without realizing it, I think I have had some fear of dying lying dormant in my heart. Some of my obsessions with nutrition and exercise have been fueled by this. As a hospice social worker, I am surrounded by brokenness every day; not just death, but death working itself out in humans, people decaying, losing their dignity, urinating and defecating on themselves, losing their rationality, their mobility, their self. I started to rest more in God's love and look forward to the renewal of all things that will come when the kingdom is fully consumated. I also realized I didn't want to end up like the people I was seeing and that Psalm 90:10 is true: "The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; Fo it is soon cut off, and we fly away". I was hoping for longevity, now I'm not so sure. Anyway, all that led me to pick up the pipe and hang up the shoes. Then, I got bit by the Traditional Bowhunting bug. Something about the natural wood, the simplicity of the art, the ancientness of the practice, the communion with the outdoors all appeal to me. However, I go to church this Sunday, and it all is put in perspective again by the Lord through his word and people. What matters? What lasts? What will never disappoint or fail? Only God and his eternal kingdom. all that matters is loving God and skillfully loving my neighbor as God's representative. My foremost time and identity is to be invested and grounded there. All else is to come second. Only when I am gripped by that first passion may I keep all the other interests and passions or desires of mine in place. This is the struggle I have with all I find pleasure in. There is glory in all things, yet they are only glories with a small g and are meant to point me to the Glory of God, to sing his praises as I enjoy his creation. So I will smoke my pipe, and run in the woods, and shoot my bow and arrows, and love my wife and play with my kids and eat my delicious food and praise my God by his grace. Lord help me to keep first things first, and all else second and to never define myself by secondary things, and to never be controlled by them, but by your spirit and agenda. Amen. Bach said it well," At sea, on land, at home, or abroad, I will smoke my pipe, and worship God." Amen brother.