A-musing, the same word musing with the greek negative added to it. Yes, we could interpret it as ‘against the muse’. Please do not let me think things through, let me play and toy with life, not consider its deeper implications. Postman’s book title links the dubious occupation of amusing ourselves with death, surely a serious observation. We are a day or two after Christmas now. I suspect that there are multitudes in the UK engaged in amusing themselves, mainly at the shopping mall, purchasing, increasing their credit card debt, obtaining more possessions! A TV ad here in UK announces ‘I shop, therefore I am’!! Surely a play on the famous dictum ‘I think, therefore I am”, but what a commentary on the life of many today.
Whatever is in the world in which we live, its prominent characteristics soon appear in the churches. This seems to be a spiritual law. What are the possessions of the churches? Where lies our wealth? Our Lord Jesus used the word ‘possess’ in Luke chapter twenty-one verse nineteen, “in your endurance possess your souls”. It is a word rarely on the lips of Jesus. He links it with the riches of man’s soul. A second usage is in Matthew chapter ten and verse nine. It is used in the negative sense of not succumbing to the acquiring of this worlds wealth on our pilgrim walk to heaven. There is a powerful acquisitive drive fostered by the tempter in these latter days. In the western world consumerism faces us on every side, this drive is rapidly becoming global. The word ‘possess’ has such a background biblically doesn’t it? Is the rarity of Jesus’ usage of it rooted in that Old Testament background? Out of the bondage of Egypt into the Promised Land. They were to possess their possessions! God in the midst of them and the land drinking the rains from heaven, yielding its rich bounty unto full one hundred fold fruitfulness. They were to be the head nation and not the tail and so the list goes on. Now, Jesus takes up the word and relates it to our possessing our souls and that possessing He links with patient endurance. The possession of the land of promise involved warfare for the nation of Israel, dispossessing the land of its previous inhabitants. The book of Joshua is an absorbing narrative of this process only partially fulfilled by the people of God. We shall not possess our souls in the riches of Christ without a battle also. Remember the context of this verse in Luke chapter twenty-one.
The temptation to amuse ourselves, surrounding ourselves with this world’s goods is surely graphically pictured in the vision of the great city Babylon in the book of the Revelation “and the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her….., in her was found human souls” and also “ the blood of prophets and saints”. There is a real battle taking place for our souls in these days. It definitely involves the temptation to live a life preoccupied with the acquiring of the goods of this world, to finding our relaxation in the amusements of this age to the neglect of the possessing of our souls which is the finding of our souls in Christ enjoying the riches of His grace day by day and seeing Him Who is invisible.