How often do we really stop and evaluate the current path we find ourselves traveling?
Too often, I come across people that are, more or less, zombies. There is a distant look in their eyes, devoid of any meaning or purpose. I cannot help but wonder what is the source of hope these people have in their lives. I see them leading a life, the fruit of which is non-existent.
I, of course, am not immune from this syndrome. As a safeguard, I make a conscious effort to periodically evaluate my life--my habits, tendencies, reactions, judgments, beliefs, passions, my vocation, as well as those things I love and desire. Essentially, I attempt to evaluate all of the "things" that comprise the person I am and, especially, those things that shape the person I am becoming.
If you know at the end of your life you will look back and value certain things, then these are the things that should become your priorities in the present.
Soli Deo Gloria.
Too often, I come across people that are, more or less, zombies. There is a distant look in their eyes, devoid of any meaning or purpose. I cannot help but wonder what is the source of hope these people have in their lives. I see them leading a life, the fruit of which is non-existent.
I, of course, am not immune from this syndrome. As a safeguard, I make a conscious effort to periodically evaluate my life--my habits, tendencies, reactions, judgments, beliefs, passions, my vocation, as well as those things I love and desire. Essentially, I attempt to evaluate all of the "things" that comprise the person I am and, especially, those things that shape the person I am becoming.
If you know at the end of your life you will look back and value certain things, then these are the things that should become your priorities in the present.
Soli Deo Gloria.
6 comments:
Constant re-evaluation of the things you described in your post sounds like wise and sound advice. If a goal of a person is to better himself/herself in order to conform himself/herself closer to Christ, then re-evaluation is a necessity. The other thing is to be in the "roadmap" (the Bible, of course) of life in order to know what to shoot for.
Good post!
I think alot of those searching for purpose get led astray by what the world says purpose is. I believe it is hidden very carfully in all the things that the world says is important: career, good deeds, goals. I'm not saying that these things are not good things to have but we must be careful. When we do or accomplish these things we belive we have fulfilled a purpose. Like so many other things this feeling does not stay with us long and we are looking once again for other things to spark that same high. When we do stop to evaluate we must remember the Truth, that our one purpose is to glorify God. If all of our careers, or good deeds, or goals are not aimed to glorify God than we are not in alianment with His purpose. And His purpose should be ours as well.
Good thoughts anonymous. What you speak of reminds me of materialism, a disease that has permeated our culture.
Hey Gil!
The Scriptures are full of wisdom and life applications. It is truly a remarkable book!
Thanks for your comment. I look forward to more.
I am reading 'The Everlasting Man' by G.K. Chesterton. It's pretty good. The following paragraph seems to touch upon your thought, so I will quote it at length:
"'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.' The civilisation of antiquity was the whole world: and men no more dreamed of its ending than of the ending of daylight. They could not imagine another order unless it were in another world. The civilisation of the world has passed away and those words hae not passed away. In the long night of the Dark Ages feudalism was so familiar a thing that no man could imagine himself without a lord: and religion was so woven into that network that no man would have believed they could be torn asunder. Fedualism itself was torn to rags and rotted away in the popular life of the true Middle Ages; and the first and freshest power in that new freedom was the old religion. Fedudalism had passed away, and the words did not pass away. The whole medieval order, in many ways so complete and almost cosmic a home for man, wore out gradually in its turn and here at least it was thought that the words would die. They went forth across the radiant abyss of the Renaissance and in fifty years were using all its light and learning for new religious foundations, new apologetics, new saints. It was supposed to have been withered up at last in the dry light of the Age of Reason; it was supposed to have disappeared ultimately in the earthquake of the Age of Revolution. Science explained it away; and it was still there. History disinterred it in the past; and it appeared suddently in the future. To-day it stands once more in our path; and even as we watch, it grows."
The above-quoted paragraph is the second-to-last paragraph in Part II, Chapter VI. Interestingly enough, the title of that chapter is 'The Five Deaths of the Faith'.
Thanks for the quote.
Implicit in "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" is the notion that truth never fades, nor does it alter over time.
The quote you have given us also raises an interesting point on the arrogance of mankind. From antiquity to the middle ages to the age of reason to the age of revolution, each proposed man made answer--albeit feudalism or science--has basked in its brillance only to see it fade away with time. It makes one stop to consider what "things" our current society is so arrogant and ignorant about.
Thanks for sharing!
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