OK, so who all remembers playing “Spin the Bottle” when you were a teenager? There was only one time that I remember playing...Guess I must've managed to escape the other times :) Anyway, this particular memory finds us sitting on the floor in a friend's basement, and as I looked around, there wasn't anybody that I hoped the bottle would land on! lol In this game of chance, I didn't want to take any of the chances!
As that scene crossed my mind again, I thought how the world seems to be playing one giant game of “Spin the Bottle”. They're all sitting on the floor in that circle, looking at what surrounds them and coming to conclusions of what they hope the bottle lands on! They stare into the faces of things like Fame, Fortune, Pleasure, and other worldly things that they think will make their life better or complete. This situation poses several problems.
The first is that you can't judge how good something is for you by looking at it. In that circle of people, the most good-looking person could be the most devastating to your life. Fame, Fortune, and Pleasure are all attractive to us, and that's for sure. As we get to know each of those worldly enticements a little better, we see what happens to a person after the bottle lands on one of them. Fame can turn people into paranoid hermits (sometimes legitimately so). After a few bad encounters, they figure out that they can't even go to Wal-Mart for themselves, because “everybody” and their brother wants to talk to them (or stalk them!). Fortune makes for a lonely companion, because people get to the point where they can't distinguish their real friends from those who are just out for a free ride. Pleasure...Well, when the bottle lands on pleasure, people get selfish. Everything they do is to “please” themselves. Not to mention how they tend to lose some of their moral fiber
Another problem is that making decisions based on a blindly-aimed figurative bottle creates unnecessary chaos. Instead of taking “purposeful”, “God-directed” steps that lead to an expected end, spinning that bottle puts us on trails to things that have no place in our lives, which interrupts the peace that the Lord intends for us. God has a divine “plan” for our lives – full of order and preparations. I like how the New Living Translation puts Isaiah 25:1: “O LORD, I will honor and praise your name, for you are my God. You do such wonderful things! You planned them long ago, and now you have accomplished them.” There's no strategy for your life when you're spinning the bottle. But, for one who is searching for happiness in “something”, the possibility of what the bottle “could” land on is where they find their hope...Sad, isn't it?
If we, as Christians, are still playing the game, we're casting a negative shadow on our faith, which is a big problem. In Luke 9:20, Jesus asks Peter who Peter thinks He his, and Peter answered, “The Christ of God.” When people look at how we live our lives, don't we want them to get the unmistakable message that Jesus is the “Christ of God”? If we're playing games of chance with the ways of the world, that doesn't exactly send out the portrayal of a Believer. (And let's not forget that the biblical meaning of “believer” is someone who “commits” or “cleaves” to something, not merely acknowledges its existence.) So, we've succeeded in complicating our own day-to-day situations, as well as saying to others that it's OK. And for those who aren't saved, they “definitely” don't need the go-ahead to wander “farther” into the world!
The one thing “Spin the Bottle” players need is for the bottle to land on is Jesus, but He doesn't play this game! You'll never find Him in a circle competing with the world. He gives us the opportunity to freely seek Him out, and when we do, He's there waiting for us. As we play “Spin the Bottle”, the Lord just looks on with sadness in His eyes. In Revelation 3:20, Jesus said, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” If we let Jesus in, He'll send the world's “faces” away, and He'll be the only one we see, thereby eliminating the whole game of “Spin the Bottle”!