Why do we grab the counterfeit, when we could receive the real?

Chuck E. Cheese keeps sending me these online coupons. I have a love/hate relationship with that place. It's a dreamland for children, and a nightmare for adults.  It's got overpriced greasy pizza, flashing lights, noisy games, loud music, and a big rat that walks around causing the big kids to squeal with excitement and little kids to scream in terror. If we take the kids there for a play date, we get a coupon and go when it's slow... like on a weekday at lunchtime. When we ask the kids what they want to do for their Birthday's, it's a no-brainer, Chuck E. Cheese's of coarse, duh! Having 3 grown boys has taught us a lot about starting traditions. If you start a tradition of big birthday parties, your children will expect them every year, and be satisfied with nothing less. So we told our girls that the way we do birthdays in our family is, you get to choose what you want to do and invite one friend. We'll bring the gifts, the cake, and the coupons. Unfortunately, 90% of the time they choose Chuck E. Cheese's. The only reason that place is an option at all is because the kids absolutely love it, and because they offer coupons and wine (Smart marketing! They knew that they needed to offer the adults something to take off the edge!)  The kids have always been perfectly content with the birthday parties we've offered, however, as they get older, they're beginning to notice how other families celebrate their children's birthdays. Some kids get the Chuck E. Cheese Deluxe Birthday Party and get to invite all their classmates. At these parties, everyone gets party hats, noise makers, a special Chuck E. Cheese cake, and Chuck E. himself comes out to celebrate with them! Oh, and recently Chuck E. Cheese's got a ticket booth! The birthday kid goes into a glass booth that blows tickets all around them.  The goal is for them to catch as many tickets as they can before their time runs out. For an adult, it would be equivalent to being put in a money booth. The kid gets to keep all the tickets he catches and then turns them in for  grand prizes. These prizes that the children just can't live without, end up being tossed aside and never touched again once they get home.
The last time we were there, I was watching the birthday boy in the ticket booth all in a frenzy grabbing tickets. As I stared at him, I saw a reflection of all human nature. We greedily grab at things that we want or think we need. Those things never bring the lasting satisfaction they promise, so we continue to grab because we're still empty. We live under the delusion that we know what's best for us, what will make us happy. The problem is, we tend to grab at all the wrong things. Those things that promise fulfillment, but never deliver. We grab for what we crave and then indulge ourselves. We experience a temporary high, then later, have to pay the price for the thing we couldn't resist in that moment. The lows are never worth the highs. Then we tell ourselves, "I'll never do that again. It's not worth the price I had to pay," ... until another temptation comes along and we justify why this time, it's okay to grab. 
In Mathew chapter 6, God tells us we don't need to worry, he'll provide everything we need. I love the Message bible's version of this passage. It says, "What I'm trying to do here is get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving..." I love that! We can choose either to live our lives at an exhausting pace, in a frenzy, grabbing for ourselves what God has not yet given us, or we can choose to relax and look to God for provision, noticing what He places before us, and responding to that giving. One path is exhausting and comes with it's all too fleeting highs followed by the deep and lasting lows, while the other path invites us to rest and leads to lasting joy, peace, and contentment. If we are too preoccupied with grabbing for ourselves, we may miss out on all the beautiful things he's trying to give us. If our fists are closed around the counterfeit, our palms aren't open to receive the real.