I have never liked subscriptions. It seems like everyone wants to sell you on a subscription. Streaming services are the thing that comes into mind. But, there are others: Audible for audiobook, Kindle unlimited for ebooks, magazine subscriptions, newspapers, online services. Hulu, Netflix, Paramount+, Amazon Prime, the list goes on and on. They would all like for you to pay that monthly fee to keep that streaming product coming.
I have a couple of problems with that whole idea.
When you are subscribed to something, you feel an obligation to consume as much of that service as possible. It’s like going to the all you can eat buffet and you do your best to eat all you can, even though stuffing yourself isn’t in your best interest.
It is also easy to subscribe to a service and then another, and another. Before you know it, you are paying for subscriptions you forgot having. So, money is being automatically taken out of your bank account and you can’t remember what it is for.
Having multiple subscriptions are a time sink. You spend all your time consuming content and never get around to doing anything creative.
Then it occurs to me, that life is like a streaming subscription service. I only have the present. Once this moment has streamed past, it’s gone. We can sit waiting for what the future holds, and miss out on today. The streaming service called “life” is not paid for with money. It is paid for with time; and time is a resource that I only have a limited amount of. I don’t know how much I have; and I can never acquire any more.
Life is like a streaming service … and it’s not.
So, today; enjoy the present that God has given you. Don’t let it stream past like a forgotten subscription service. Once it streams past, there is no way to rewind it and play it over again.
Lord, help me to pull my mind out of the phone or the internet or the TV and put my focus on the things around me that truly matter. Let my hands be put to creating something beautiful out of this day. Thank you for my present.