The Thirsty Soul: Why Our Pursuit of Pleasure Leaves Us Empty and How Christ Offers True Life
The other night, here in Akasia, Pretoria, a Level 5 storm warning screamed across my phone. The sky darkened, the wind whipped the jacaranda trees, and for a moment, the whole suburb held its breath. Yet, as I looked out my window, I realised a deeper, more silent storm was already raging. It wasn’t in the clouds, but in the spirit of our nation—a storm of fleeting pleasures promising refuge but delivering only ruin. From the tragic news of a New Year’s Day murder in Limpopo to the frantic chase for the next government grant or viral moment, we are a people drowning in what we craved.
The Sugar Ant’s Path: A South African Parable of Pleasure
Let me paint a picture for you. Imagine a line of sugar ants, marching in perfect formation. They have found a treasure trove—a spilled packet of sugar, glistening and white. Each ant takes a granule, a tiny burst of sweetness, and carries it back to the nest. The path is straight, the reward is instant. But what if that path leads directly over the edge of a sundowner glass, sticky with the dregs of sweet wine? The ant, focused only on the next granule, does not see the drowning pool ahead. It follows the promise of pleasure, right into a liquid grave.
Is this not our story? Our appetites govern our destiny, and we are on a sugar ant’s path. We chase the fleeting gust of the wind’s coolness, only to find ourselves hotter, thirstier, and more desperate than before. We see it in the father in Limpopo, whose momentary rage ended a son’s life and shattered his own. We see it in the prosperity gospel charlatans who promise a feast of wealth but steal the purity of the Gospel, leaving souls malnourished on spiritual junk food. We see it in our own hearts, scrolling for the next digital hit, the next purchase, the next distraction that promises to fill a God-shaped void with the pretty wrappers of the enemy’s poison.
This is the mirage of pleasure. It is a thief. It promises a feast but only steals your time, your purity, and your God-given purpose.
The Deep, Steady River: An Eternal Contrast
So, what is the alternative? If fleeting pleasure is a flash flood—violent, dramatic, and destructive—then true joy is a deep, steady river. A flash flood in the Karoo is a terrifying force; it rips away topsoil, destroys roads, and then is gone, leaving only cracked earth and deeper thirst behind. But the Orange River? It flows year-round. It is reliable. It sustains cities, farms, and ecosystems. Its depth is not noisy; its power is in its constant, life-giving presence.
This river is the joy of the Lord. It is what Christ offered the Samaritan woman at the well: “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again” (John 4:13-14). The world offers sugary, stagnant puddles that evaporate by midday. Christ offers a spring of living water, welling up to eternal life—a river that flows from the very throne of God (Revelation 22:1).
Disciplining Our Appetites: A Biblical and Rational Call to Arms
This brings us to the hard, necessary work: disciplining our appetites. An appetite is not evil in itself. Hunger drives us to eat. Thirst drives us to drink. But a disordered appetite—one that craves poison over nourishment—is a tyrant that must be dethroned.
Let us construct a clear, logical argument, as solid as the granite of the Magaliesberg:
· Premise 1: Human beings are designed for a specific source of ultimate fulfilment and joy (This is evident in our universal search for meaning and our persistent dissatisfaction with temporal things. Philosophers from Augustine to modern thinkers have noted this “God-shaped vacuum.”).
· Premise 2: The Creator of humanity has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ and His Word as that sole source of ultimate fulfilment (“In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” – Psalm 16:11. Christ declares, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” – John 10:10).
· Premise 3: Pursuing counterfeit sources of pleasure (idols) leads to personal and societal brokenness (This is the testimony of Scripture from the Golden Calf to the Prodigal Son, and it is empirically observable in the crime, addiction, and family breakdown plaguing our nation).
· Conclusion: Therefore, to find true joy and escape destruction, we must actively discipline our appetites away from counterfeits and direct them toward God in Christ.
A common objection arises: “Isn’t this just Puritanical killjoy-ism? Isn’t God the giver of all good things?” Yes! He is! But the difference is between receiving a gift from a Father and worshipping the gift itself. The problem is not enjoying a braai with friends; the problem is living for it. It is not having a drink; it is being owned by the bottle. It is not desiring a good life; it is selling your soul for the prosperity gospel’s lie that godliness is a means to material gain.
The South African Soul: Between Two Worlds
We in Africa, and particularly in South Africa, sit at a complex crossroads. We are heirs to rich communal traditions—ubuntu—that understand life in the context of relationship and covenant. Yet, we are bombarded by a hyper-individualistic, consumerist global culture that screams, “Your pleasure is paramount!”. We see this tension play out in devastating ways.
Our President speaks of our nation as a river, converging streams of hope. Yet, how many of our streams are polluted at the source by the sewage of pleasure-seeking? We have among the highest rates of fatherless homes in the world, often because the appetite for sexual pleasure or the escape of alcohol overrides the sacred covenant of family. We are a “book-less” society in a faith that is the religion of The Book, choosing the flickering, passive pleasure of a screen over the deep, active joy of engaging with God’s Word.
We must sound the alarm against the syncretism that packages this poison in our context. The largest church in South Africa is not a biblical church but a cult that mixes fragments of Christianity with traditional worship directed toward a man. This is not inculturation; it is idolatry. It is trading the eternal for the momentary, dressed in African cloth. True African biblical hermeneutics does not use culture to edit Scripture, but uses Scripture, in conversation with culture, to reveal the eternal Christ who fulfills, corrects, and redeems every noble longing of the African heart.
The Call: Trading the Mirage for the Miracle
So, my fellow South African, what will you do? The storm is here. The flash floods of cheap pleasure are rising. Will you stay on the sugar ant’s path?
I call you to the river. The call is costly. It means turning off the noise to seek the Father in silence. It means closing the browser tab to open the Bible. It means forgiving the unforgivable, loving the unlovable, and finding joy not in changing your circumstances but in the unchanging character of Christ within them. It means being the faithful father in a nation of absent ones, the reader of Truth in a land of illiteracy, the humble follower of Jesus in an age of celebrity pastors.
Do not trade the eternal for the momentary. The enemy of your soul is a master marketer. His wrappers are pretty—success, comfort, romance, freedom from hardship. But inside is the poison of emptiness. Jesus Christ offers no wrapper. He offers Himself—the Bread of Life, the Living Water, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.
Come to the deep, steady river. Its current is the love of God. Its waters bring healing to our land, from the bustling streets of Joburg to the quiet villages of Limpopo. Discipline your appetite. Govern your destiny. Drink deeply, and thirst no more.
https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/the-mirage-of-pleasure/id1506692775?i=1000743770968
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