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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Chad Kreuzer

Delayed Gratification

Heavenly Father, we're so thankful for your word.

We're thankful for this wonderful day that you've given us to set apart, to put away our labor of the week.

Lord, I pray that your Holy Spirit would be with us just now.

Back in the 1960s, a series of studies were conducted that moved into the 70s by a man by the name of Walter Mischel.

And this study was on 1 of the characteristics that is 1 of the key characteristics, 1 of the key components to people's individual success in life.

Probably many of you have heard it, and many of you maybe have even seen some of the videos of the children who were in the studies.

Basically, if you've seen it, they took little children, ages about 4 or 5, they were preschoolers, and they put them in a room with 1 of the researchers, and the researcher would sit the little child down on a chair.

There's a table in front of them and the chair there, and the child is sitting on the chair, and they have a plate in front of the child, and it has 1 marshmallow on it.

And the child is told, they said, listen, you can eat the marshmallow, but if you're willing to wait, I'm going to leave the room, and if you're willing to wait, when I come back I will give you, what, 2 marshmallows.

And so then the researcher leaves the room, and when they leave the room, there's video cameras on the child.

The child probably doesn't recognize that they're being taped but the little child is sitting there and there's nothing to do because there's nothing else in the room so they're sitting there looking at the plate in front of them with a marshmallow on it.

And so the kids are looking at it, and the video is hilarious, because the children are literally doing things like, you know, they're trying not to think about it.

Some kids are, you know, getting closer and closer.

Some of the children get up and they even smell, they sniff the marshmallow.

And some even go so far as to literally lick the marshmallow.

But they're struggling, but some kids immediately just grab it and eat it.

And so they're looking at delayed gratification.

They're looking at children and what happens.

Now the fascinating thing is they notice that some children, like I said, immediately snatched that marshmallow and ate it.

Now the researcher would leave the room for a total of 15 minutes.

And some of, now can you imagine for a 4 or 5 year old sitting in front of a marshmallow for 15 minutes with nothing else to do?

But some of the children actually made it the entire 15 minutes.

And so they succeeded in delaying their gratification.

Now, the researchers then came along later when these children had grown up a bit, and they were now adolescents.

And now they looked at the lives of these young people to find out, how did it compare?

How does their present life as an adolescent compare with their life as a small child?

And what the researchers discovered is that what the child was like when they were 4 or 5 was virtually unchanged.

Now, obviously, they grew up and they were older and they had a higher intellect, but the children who immediately snatched it had greater struggles in life.

The children who were able to delay their gratification the longest were actually able, they were much better, they were doing much better.

For instance, they had higher SAT scores, the ones who had stronger, you know, delayed gratification.

They were less likely to become overweight, the ones who could delay their gratification.

And I guess that would, you know, with the marshmallow situation, that might give you a hint there.

But also, they were less likely to be, you know, hooked on drugs or abusing substances, these kinds of things.

So this is something that actually took on much later in life.

Now some don't know that they went on literally 40 years after their first time, their first experiment.

Now, it was done originally in the 60s to the 70s.

They came back 40 years later and tested them, and they found that it was still virtually unchanged.

That their character, in general, had followed them throughout their life.

Though it had begun, not that the character began, but the study had begun at the age of 4 or 5, their lifestyle had kind of continued on, and you could tell someone's character to a large degree based upon a four-year-old experience.

It's interesting because just this week I was looking at 1 of those quotations, maybe in child guidance or somewhere, where it talked about if a child, if a child is not well-trained by the age of 3, she goes on to talk about 7 also, but she says even by the age of 3, it will be much harder later on.

So these children had already come out of their three-year-old, they were four-year-old, and their character stuck.

And delayed gratification versus instant gratification, this is something that is important.

It is something that the Bible talks about over and over, not only in making statements about it, but we also see examples in people's lives, people who were able to delay their gratification, we also see people who couldn't, who saw something, and they wanted it, and they wanted it now.

I think of someone who had a desire for instant gratification.

It was 1 of the judges, his name was Samson.

You remember he sees a certain woman and the wording in the King James is this, Get her, for she pleaseth me well.

Now, this man saw something and he wanted it, right?

But the Bible has statements like in Ecclesiastes chapter 7, verse 8.

It says, better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.

And the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

So it says, better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.

Meaning, this is something that, you know, something like a university student or, I mean, any of us can have various aspects of our life, but I think of a student right now.

You're going through school, and I ask almost any student that goes to school here, and you know, I ask, so how are classes going?

And What is 1 of the most common things you hear?

It's really, really tough going to school.

There's so much work, so many things you have to memorize, so many, you know, whatever it is, you just struggle with.

And so it's interesting, but the Bible says the end of a thing is better than the beginning thereof.

Meaning, you know, while you're in the midst of something, while you're starting off some something in your life, it is not always so enjoyable.

Sometimes you actually just think like, man, I just want to give up.

But the end of a thing is better than the beginning thereof.

Meaning, and then it says in the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

So if you are patient, if you are diligent, if you work your way through and do not give up, the end of it, there's something that you enjoy at the end when you finally get that diploma, you rejoice knowing that you finally accomplished the goal that you were seeking to fulfill.

You know, the Bible talks about, it talks about this experience in 1 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 24 to 27.

Paul tells us, it's interesting because he tells us that athletes, sports stars in his day, He says that they were people who were willing to sacrifice personal or immediate gain for a future reward.

He says, know ye not that they that run in a race run all, but 1 receives the prize.

And every man that strives for the mastery is temperate in all things.

He says, now they do it to receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.

He says, I therefore so run, not as uncertainly, so fight I, not as 1 that beats the air.

He said, but I beat my body and bring it into subjection lest that by any other means I myself should become a castaway.

And so Paul said that in his day, there were sports stars, there were athletes, who were seeking to gain a wreath upon their forehead.

And they were willing to sacrifice a temporary wonderful meal, or sacrifice their time.

They were willing to be temperate, maybe even going to bed on time.

Whatever it was, they were willing to be temperate in all things so that they could achieve their goal that was somewhere in the future.

That in his day, and it's interesting because Paul's concept of this is, look, these people, these people are doing it for secular means.

They're doing it so that they can be number 1.

They are doing it for a temporal advantage, a temporal goal, a trophy as it were.

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Delayed Gratification

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