Meditations on God

Joy Does Not Seek Us Out
There is simply no way for us to experience all of the joy that life has to offer without also opening ourselves up to pain.

Our hearts cannot be receptive to the good without also being vulnerable to the bad.

If we want to protect ourselves from being hurt, from being let down, disappointed, and experiencing tragedy, we also shut ourselves off from love, joy, and happiness.

Unfortunately, this does not actually work so well.

Pain has a way of finding us whether we are open to it or not.

It does not ask our permission.

It just comes.

Love, joy, and happiness, on the other hand, do not seek us out.

They do not just come to us on their own.

We must be open to them.

We must work for them.

And, even though they may not last, we have to seize upon them when the opportunity presents itself, lest we miss it.

Since pain will find us whether we are open to it or not, we may as well embrace it so that we can experience the good with the bad.

It is better to have both than joy and pain than to have pain alone.
Share this:
X
Facebook
Like Loading…
April 15, 2021

joy, life, love, pain, tragedy
Clearer Purpose
We often do not understand our purpose until it has already been fulfilled.

It is more easily understood in hindsight than in forethought.

It is difficult to know why we are doing what we are doing while we are in the middle of it.

We are too close to our own circumstances to see them for what they are and to see ourselves for who we are.

We have to work our way through the situations we are in so that we can look back at them with a different perspective.

As we grow and change through our experiences, we begin to see the value that we have brought to the lives of the people we have come into contact with.

We also begin to see the value they have brought to our lives.

Our experience becomes informative.

As we look back, our purpose becomes more clear.

We may even see it through our failures.

Failure is as much of a teacher as success, or perhaps it is more of one.

Either way, whether by seeing where we went right or where we went wrong, we begin to see.

Our purpose becomes clearer.
Share this:
X
Facebook
Like Loading…
April 14, 2021

clarity, experience, purpose
Shared Struggles
The struggles we go through may someday become someone else’s inspiration.

We do not always know why we face the challenges we face.

Things are not always clear while we are in the middle of difficult times.

If we make it through, however, if we persist and do not give up, we will come out on the other side with valuable experience.

This experience can be shared with others who are going through similar difficulties.

And, this may be enough to help them get through what they are going through.

Our experience may be the inspiration they need to persist and to not give up.

So we owe it to who we will someday be and who we may someday help to keep going, to see this through to the other side, and to turn our struggles into experiences that we can share generously and bravely so that we can all keep going.
Share this:
X
Facebook
Like Loading…
April 13, 2021

challenges, difficulties, experience, persistence, struggles
Preparing With Action
There are a million ways to distract ourselves from our purpose.

We can even distract ourselves with preparation.

We can study, research, think, talk, and listen our way out of the action we know deep down that we need to take.

It is easy to tell when we are doing this, but that does not mean it is easy to correct our course.

All we need to do is to ask ourselves whether or not our time, energy, and attention spent in preparation would actually be better off spent in purposeful action.

If the answer is no, we are better off practicing patience and using this time to prepare ourselves for when action is more clearly necessary or advisable.

If the answer is yes, however, there is a good chance that our preparation is really just procrastination in disguise.

Of course, we want to be prepared for whatever course we need to take, but the truth is that some paths can only be created by walking them.

If the purpose we are called to is truly unique to us, there is a good chance that no amount of preparation will help us anyway.

The only thing that can prepare us for the untrodden path is the first step forward.
Share this:
X
Facebook
Like Loading…
April 12, 2021

action, planning, procrastination, purpose
Choosing Better Or Worse
Every day, we get to choose whether we are going to live better or die faster.

While we cannot control all of the external variables of our lives, we can control how we respond to and interact with them.

We get to choose how we behave.

We do not get to choose the entirety of the situation within which we find ourselves, but we do get to decide how we are going to live based on that situation.

We get to choose whether we are going to use our current situation to make our lives better or worse.

And, we get to choose whether we are going to use our lives to make other people’s lives better or worse.

These are not decisions we make only once.

If we choose poorly today, we can always change our minds and our course tomorrow.

But, we must keep in mind that these day-to-day decisions add up.

The choices we make from day-to-day compile on top of one another.

This happens for better or for worse.

We must decide, therefore, what kind of investment we are trying to make from day-to-day in ourselves, our lives, and the world around us.
Share this:
X
Facebook
Like Loading…
April 11, 2021

change, choices, decisions, impact, life, relationshps

Joy Does Not Seek Us Out

Share this:

Clearer Purpose

Share this:

Shared Struggles

Share this:

Preparing With Action

Share this:

Choosing Better Or Worse

Share this: