All of us have been given certain talents and gifts in our lives. Sometimes we recognize them early on, sometimes we don't realize we have them until later in life. No matter, when we know what they are, we should work hard to utilize them to make others lives better.
"To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift." - Steve Prefontaine
If we do not give all that we can, or use our gifts as best as we can, we are sacrificing the gifts that we have been given. We are then not becoming the people that we can and should be.
For example, if your talent is writing, but you never write (not even letters to friends), you are not using that gift for all that it could be. Even if you are giving your best to enriching the lives of others through writing personal letters, you are using your gift. If your gift is music but you never play, you are sacrificing your gift.
This quote, I believe, can bring about good reflection. What is your gift or gifts? Are you using them? In what ways could you use them even more?
I am reading a book called "Your Money or Your Life" (which I very highly recommend!) and there is a great part in the book where it talks about fulfillment and dreams. I will quote from the book (all emphasis mine):
"For many of us, however, 'growing up' has meant outgrowing our dreams. The aspiration to write a great book has shrunk to writing advertising copy. The dream of being an inspiring preacher has evolved into being an administrator and mediator between the factions of the congregation. Instead of really knowing who their patients are, how the patients live or the challenges in their lives, doctors today are plagued with back-to-back fifteen minute patient visits and malpractice suits. The dream of traveling around the world becomes two weeks a year of hitting the tourist traps. Living a fulfilling and meaningful life seems almost impossible, given the requirements of simply meeting day-to-day needs and problems. Yet, at one time or another practically every one of us has had a dream of what we wanted our lives to be.
Wherever you are, take a few moments now to reflect upon your dreams. So many of us have spent so many hours, days and years of our lives devoted to someone else's agenda that it may be hard to get in touch with our dreams. So many of us have whittled away at our uniqueness so that we could be square pegs in square holes that it seems slightly self-indulgent to wonder what kind of hole we would be inclined to carve for ourselves. Indulge yourself now. Stare out a window. Shut your eyes. And envision what would be a truly fulfilling life for you. To help you get started on your journey, ask yourself the following questions:
- What did you want to be when you grew up? - What have you always wanted to do that you haven't done yet? - What have you done in your life that you are really proud of? - If you knew you were going to die within a year, how would you spend that year? - What brings you the most fulfillment - and how is that related to money? - If you didn't have to work for a living, what would you do with your time?" (109-110)
I think those are powerful thoughts, powerful questions.
Spend some time thinking about them. Not only right now, but tomorrow, and next week, and periodically throughout your life. Focusing on these things, and how to make them a reality, can change your life in amazing ways.
Every Sunday on this site I will take some time to look at a passage from the Bible that I like and think is great... though they could obviously be presented by themselves without further mention, I will throw my two cents in on what the verse(s) mean to me.
Preaching the Gospel does not mean merely telling people what it means or what it says. It does not mean simply reciting the teachings of Christ, and then failing to live them out. St. Francis of Assisi expressed this thought when he said, "Preach the Gospel at all time, if necessary use words."
In a similar vein, St. Paul talks about this in his first letter to the Thessalonians. He writes:
"With such affection for you, we were determined to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our very selves as well, so dearly beloved had you become to us." (1 Thessalonians 2:8)
The Bible calls us to love others as we love ourselves, and we cannot do this if we do not share ourselves with them and invest in them. This means spending time with others, making them a priority in life, and giving them the very best of ourselves.
Notice that St. Paul still talks about still sharing the gospel of God with others. If we want a relationship to be as fruitful as possible, Christ still has to be at the center of it. It is easy to think that just by spending time with some person we are sharing ourselves with them and having a great friendship, but that is only part of the equation. We need to share Christ with them.
In your friendships and relationships today, I would challenge you to think if you are living this out. I know I could be better in many ways when it comes to this. If we love another person (as we are called to do with everyone), then we need to share with them our lives, and our faith. This will show them how beloved they are to us.
This chapter is a our relationships with other people, especially close friends and relatives. I have found this especially true in the circumstance of young adult moving back in with the parents, or even being home for a holiday break. All of a sudden, everything bugs you, especially when it is done by your parents.
Who has not experienced something similar to what Lewis describes here?
"In civilized life domestic hatred usually expresses itself by saying things which would appear quite harmless on paper (the words are not offensive) but in such a voice, or at such a moment, that they are not far short of a blow in the face... Your patient must demand that all of his utterances are to be taken at their face value and judged simply on their actual words, while at the same time judging all his mother's utterances with the fullest and most oversensitive interpretation of the tone and the context of the suspected intention." (17-18)
Lewis hits this so perfectly on the head in my opinion that I can hardly think of anything to add. This is a very easy trap to get into, especially with parents and those people who we spend a lot of time around. We must be careful to make sure that we see the splint in our own eye.
We must also make a thorough self-examination, and honestly look at our lives and the way that we are living. We do not want to fall into the trap that Lewis explains:
"Aggravate that most useful human characteristic, the horror and neglect of the obvious. You must bring him to a condition in which he can practice self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts about himself which are perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house with him or worked in the same office." (16)
If we are going to grow and improve as people, we must be able to honestly assess our faults. Spend some time in prayer and contemplation on this. If we don't know what areas we struggle, we will be unable to grow in them.
I love reading and literature, in part because it feels like you are experiencing something new with each book or story that you read. You are (in a sense) reliving what the author has experienced, or what the author thinks and believes.
“To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company.” - Andre Gide
An article I read a while back explains this feeling better than I can. Charles Pierce wrote:
"When Dan Jenkins wrote about an Oklahoma game, he could make you think, well, screw Paris in the '20s — Norman, Okla., is the only place to be. While I was at The National, I finally made it to Norman. I realized that what had made Norman great was that Jenkins was there."
Reading is a great way to experience the world and the thoughts of those you would otherwise never get the chance to interact with. This is why reading is so great.
Jimmy Butler is a basketball player that played at Marquette for the past few years, and he looks to be drafted in the NBA Draft in a couple of weeks. But that is not what makes him special.
I read this article on him the other day, and it is amazing the things he has overcome.
"His story," one GM said. "is one of the most remarkable I've seen in all my years of basketball. There were so many times in his life where he was set up to fail. Every time, he overcame just enormous odds. When you talk to him -- and he's hesitant to talk about his life -- you just have this feeling that this kid has greatness in him."
Butler is fine with that interpretation. But there's another one that he fears.
"Please, I know you're going to write something. I'm just asking you, don't write it in a way that makes people feel sorry for me," he said. "I hate that. There's nothing to feel sorry about. I love what happened to me. It made me who I am. I'm grateful for the challenges I've faced. Please, don't make them feel sorry for me."
Pity hasn't gotten Butler anywhere in life. Courage has.
Every Sunday on this site I will take some time to look at a passage from the Bible that I like and think is great... though they could obviously be presented by themselves without further mention, I will throw my two cents in on what the verse(s) mean to me.
No matter how generous and giving we are, we can never outdo God when it comes to generosity. He will always one up us. Still, we must recognize the amazing gifts that we have been given, and do our best to give of ourselves to other people. Jesus tells us:
"Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give." (Matthew 10:8)
By virtue of being given life, we have received much. We have received the ability to live, to love, to learn, and everything else that comes along with being human. If you are reading this right now, you have been given the mental capacity to read and understand, and you have been given the technology to access this. When we look at things in this light, it is shocking how much we have been given!
Everyone will have things they complain about in their life (me too), but it is important to recognize all of the gifts and graces we do have. In that vein, we know that everything we have we are given from God, and therefore not everything is ours to keep, and we must give to others.
Our smile, our personality, our love... these are all things we must give. Our time, our talent, our treasure... again, these are things that we must share with others, so that they in turn might grow as people and share their gifts.
When you are tired, and don't want to go that extra mile, just try to remember this verse... without cost you have received, without cost you are to give.
Each week I will summarize a chapter from The Screwtape Letters , a book by CS Lewis in which a senior demon named Screwtape is writing to his nephew, Wormwood, giving him advice on leading a man to damnation.
In our religious life, we will often have moments where we feel most on fire for our faith, most sure of it, and most excited to really live it out. It can happen in the initial turning of our hearts toward God, or in many of the silent turns toward God that we will make in our religious life. Often, this time of excitement is replaced by our normal everyday lives. Our resolve is gone, we are back into the same habits.
This is what Lewis talks about in chapter 2 of The Screwtape Letters. Lewis writes:
"In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing." (13)
We must also keep our focus on God and His teachings, not on how well everyone around us is following them. Remember, all are sinners, we cannot let the sins of fellow Christians make us question the faith in anyway. This can be our tendency.
"Provided that any of those neighbors sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion therefore be somehow ridiculous." (12)
I think this is a big reason why people who are not Christians have a problem with the faith, or think that the faith is not true - they see those people that profess to be Christians doing wrong, or living unholy lives. For our own part, we cannot let this fact detract us from our faith. Those Christians around us will continue to sin - that does not make the faith any less true.
Lastly, we must remember that our aim is to be perfect as Jesus is perfect. It is not to simply be a more ardent follower of Christ than our neighbor, which might not even be that hard depending on who we hang out with. Again, Lewis:
"What he says, even on his own knees, about his own sinfulness is all parrot talk. At bottom, he still believe he has run up a very favorable credit balance in the Enemy's ledger by allowing himself to be converted, and thinks that he's showing great humility and condescension in going to church with these "smug", commonplace neighbors at all." (14)
This is a trap that is easy to fall into, especially if you do not know many Christians. We may see those around us living a life of sin, and believe that by simply going to church once a week we are living a holy life. Not so fast. We must strive to do God's will every day at all time, no matter how those around us act, no matter how good we may think we are.
A lot of great lessons from chapter 2 of The Screwtape Letters.
It is very easy for me to get caught up in everyday life and the busyness of it. It can seem like there is never enough time for things like writing and reading. It is often during these times that I might wonder if anything I am doing is actually helping to make those around me better people, or if I am doing anything to help the world.
It is daunting, on the surface. The world is a big place, and it's easy to think that there is no way we can affect 6 billion people, and therefore we cannot change the world. Fortunately, in practice, things are not as hard as we make them seem.
You need to look at where your talents are, where your passions are, and this is how you can affect the world. There are countless other people with the same skills that I have, and personality traits that I have... but likely there are some ways that I can affect people, or at least the people that I know, in a way that nobody else can. This is how I can change the world.
You don't need to come up with a great invention, or become a political leader in order to change the world. You simply have to love other people, and try to make their lives better. You have some unique talent or skill that will allow you to do this, you just have to find it.
All around us society is focused on things like money, sex, and power. We are always trying to make more money, TV and movies are trying to push the envelope on what they can show, and relationships are becoming less about what you can do for another person and more about what they can do for you.
But our lives are meant to be so much more, we are meant to live for more. These are the sentiments expressed by the band Switchfoot and their song "Meant to Live."
"We were meant to live for so much more/ Have we lost ourselves?"
If we are simply striving to make more money, amuse ourselves, and live a selfish life, then we are missing the point of life, and the things that we were meant to live for and strive to be. It seems as if somewhere along the way our society has lost itself.
What were we made to live for? Loving one another, seeking the best in others and striving to lift them up, looking out for the needs of others more than ourselves, and treating others like we would want to be treated. It is when we do these things that we can live happy and fulfilling lives, that we can change others and change ourselves.
What is your life lived for right now? Is it in line with the things that we were made for?
Every Sunday on this site I will take some time to look at a passage from the Bible that I like and think is great... though they could obviously be presented by themselves without further mention, I will throw my two cents in on what the verse(s) mean to me.
Today we look at a verse when God tells us that He is with us always, no matter where we go or what we see. It comes from Isaiah.
"When you pass through the water, I will be with you; in the rivers you shall not drown. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned; the flames shall not consume you." (Isaiah 43:2)
God's message to us here is very clear... there is nowhere we can go where we are beyond the reach of Him. There will be many times in our life where will we feel down, or unworthy, or that we are "too bad" for God to save us, He tells us that is not the case.
We must always be willing to turn to God, to let Him help us. When we are in danger, or in despair, remember that God will not let us drown if we just turn to Him. Through all of the difficult time in life, we have to allow God into our hearts.
Next time you feel like you are past the point of redemption, simply remember that God will be with you, saving you from the fire. There is no need to be afraid.
Each week I will summarize a chapter from The Screwtape Letters, a book by CS Lewis in which a senior demon named Screwtape is writing to his nephew, Wormwood, giving him advice on leading a man to damnation.
In Chapter 1, the message Lewis is trying to convey is clear - we need to fill our minds with higher things, and constantly be challenging ourselves. If we stand still in life and be content with the "ordinary," we are susceptible to a fall. Lewis writes:
"You begin to see the point? Thanks to processes which we set at work in them centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes. Keep pressing home on him the ordinariness of things." (10)
The world that we live in is quite extraordinary. We seem to have lost that sense of wonder, and regard almost everything that we come across as being ordinary. We are content to live our little lives, and never challenge our brain to learn and grow, never try to see things in new ways.
Last week, I was on a flight... and there I was, flying above the clouds, looking down on the Earth... WOW! It just struck me how amazing, how incredible it was, that we can fly to different places around the world. We have the technology to build an airplane and fly it around the world safely. It blows my mind. Looking down on the clouds rather than looking up at them... how can that not fill you with wonder?
We should constantly be trying to learn more about the world in which we live in and try to see it and understand it in new ways. After all, since God created the world we live in, when we understand that better (and the things that happen in it better), we can understand Him better.
When are content with ordinariness, we are missing the point... we are missing the grandeur that is all around us, and we can even begin to miss God.
Some quotes by one of the greatest Presidents our country has seen - Theodore Roosevelt.
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"Believe you can and you're halfway there."
"Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike."
"Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage."
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
"Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind."
"In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing."
"Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground."
"Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care."
"Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far."
"The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything."
"If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month."
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It was said that Teddy Roosevelt would read a book a day... what an inspiration!
So often we hear people (sometimes even ourselves) bemoan the state of society. When we hear of a murder, or a drug bust, or any of a number of other different crimes, we read about them and say, "What is our society coming to?"
And it is true. Society is (in my opinion) heading some negative places, and things are being acceptable that make me shake my head. But at the same time, we have to always change ourselves to in order to become better people.
It is easy to judge ourselves and our actions against the backdrop of society, or the people we know. We have to try and avoid that temptation. That leads to thinking such as, "Sure I didn't act very nicely there, but nobody else would have acted nice in that situation." Or, "Sure I don't set time for prayer everyday, but most people don't even go to church, so I am still doing good there." And so on and so on.
We have to judge our actions based against the best person that we can be, not against what everyone else is doing. If we are not living up to being the person we can and should be, it doesn't matter if we are still acting better than some or most people. We are still falling short of what we can be.
This is another reason why it is important to surround yourself with quality people that will lift you up higher. It will help you avoid this temptation and always make you strive to be a little bit better than you are, and a little bit better than you think you can be.
By the way, this is a lyric from a song called "Quiet as a Mouse" by Margot & the Nuclear So and Sos.
I have been doing extra traveling over the past couple of weeks, so I might miss a couple of posts! Between work and sandbagging, it has been kind of a crazy 2 weeks.
We will refund your money for any missed posts! Have a great day :)
One of my favorite bands is Mumford and Sons, and one of the songs I particularly enjoy is Sigh No More. They seem to at times have lyrics in their songs that are uncharacteristically deep when compared to other popular radio songs (and they sound good too, which is a nice perk).
For instance, in Sigh No More, they have this lyric near the end of the song.
"Love it will not betray you Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free Be more like the man you were made to be"
Rarely in music have I seen lyrics so right on. They are so simple and so deep at the same time. We can look at them in a couple of different ways.
One is in relation to our relationship with those around us. If we are in a relationship where we feel like we are enslaved to someone (or vice versa) that is not a loving relationship. If that is true, then we are being used (or, again, doing the using), which is the opposite of love.
At the same time, we can look at this lyric in relation to our relationship with God. Oftentimes people (who don't really understand God) think religion is simply about rules. "I have a personal relationship with Jesus," they will say, "I don't need religion." And they will use that excuse to justify doing whatever they want.
But God's love is not about rules. He does not betray us. He does not tell us that we cannot get drunk, or have premarital sex, or lie to others as a way of enslaving us. It rather a way to set us free to live happy, fulfilling lives. It is like this, when you play a game of basketball, there are rules. If you play a pickup game anywhere, you won't be able to run with the ball and foul everyone. There are fouls and there is the rule of traveling. These things are not in place to enslave us or prohibit us from enjoying the game, but rather the opposite. They are there to allow us to be free to enjoy the game.
In the same way, God does not put things in our life as a way of making us "enjoy it" less, or make it seem like all we do all day is follow rules. Rather, he puts things there so that we can live more freely and fully.
Love shall you set you free and allow you to become the person you were meant to be. Anything less is simply not love.
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you But make allowance for their doubting too, If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream–and not make dreams your master, If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much, If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!
It has videos of the top 5, and I would encourage you to check them out if you are looking for 3 minutes of entertainment. My favorite out of their top 5 is the one about John Lennnon:
" (which I very highly recommend!) and there is a great part in the book where it talks about fulfillment and dreams. I will quote from the book (all emphasis mine):
and their song "Meant to Live."
. They seem to at times have lyrics in their songs that are uncharacteristically deep when compared to other popular radio songs (and they sound good too, which is a nice perk).