What would you do...
...if you had time and money to do anything?
This question is an important one if you are trying to find your spiritual gifts. Most of us (once we got past the fantasy of having our own private island in the South Pacific) would find that there is something in us we are longing to do that we dare not let ourselves think about for fear of failing to do it. The pain of thinking we can't do what we most long to do is enough to make most people stop thinking about the question altogether.
Still, it's important. Go ahead. Think about it. Risk the pain. What would you do if you had time and money to do anything?
Me? It's complicated. I would like to write, I would like to teach, I would like to preach. Since I can dream big, I'd like to be able to do all of those things. I'd like to balance the solitude of writing with the community of preaching, the cut and thrust of classroom debate with the sparkling word of life in the pulpit. If I had my dream, I'd be able to do those things in equal parts. That would be my work, those three things.
Knowing that is my dream is important, even if I never attain it, as is likely. Because it tells me something about myself. When we know our dreams, we know what it is we miss in life. So many people go through life with a nagging sense of "Is this all there is?" and they try to fill that void in all kinds of unhealthy ways--through sex, through food, through shopping, and countless other ways. But when we know our dreams, we know what we miss; we know why we occasionally feel dissatisfied. It is not because of a lack of food, goods or sex; it is because we are not yet able to live completely in keeping with our gifts.
When we know our gifts, then, we find healthier ways of dealing with our dissatisfaction. It is not that we must always have the type of food, sex, or consumer goods that we want; and getting those things will not leave us feeling better. Instead, the more we live into our gifts, the more we allow ourselves to become the person God is making us to be, the more we are then able to be fulfilled and give ourselves completely away to others.
So what would you do if you had time and money to do anything? Go ahead. Be brave. Think about it.
This question is an important one if you are trying to find your spiritual gifts. Most of us (once we got past the fantasy of having our own private island in the South Pacific) would find that there is something in us we are longing to do that we dare not let ourselves think about for fear of failing to do it. The pain of thinking we can't do what we most long to do is enough to make most people stop thinking about the question altogether.
Still, it's important. Go ahead. Think about it. Risk the pain. What would you do if you had time and money to do anything?
Me? It's complicated. I would like to write, I would like to teach, I would like to preach. Since I can dream big, I'd like to be able to do all of those things. I'd like to balance the solitude of writing with the community of preaching, the cut and thrust of classroom debate with the sparkling word of life in the pulpit. If I had my dream, I'd be able to do those things in equal parts. That would be my work, those three things.
Knowing that is my dream is important, even if I never attain it, as is likely. Because it tells me something about myself. When we know our dreams, we know what it is we miss in life. So many people go through life with a nagging sense of "Is this all there is?" and they try to fill that void in all kinds of unhealthy ways--through sex, through food, through shopping, and countless other ways. But when we know our dreams, we know what we miss; we know why we occasionally feel dissatisfied. It is not because of a lack of food, goods or sex; it is because we are not yet able to live completely in keeping with our gifts.
When we know our gifts, then, we find healthier ways of dealing with our dissatisfaction. It is not that we must always have the type of food, sex, or consumer goods that we want; and getting those things will not leave us feeling better. Instead, the more we live into our gifts, the more we allow ourselves to become the person God is making us to be, the more we are then able to be fulfilled and give ourselves completely away to others.
So what would you do if you had time and money to do anything? Go ahead. Be brave. Think about it.
posted by Rev. Michael Jordan at 10:57 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home