Day 5: Seeing Life From God’s View
Posted on April 28th, 2004Just got back from poker and watching the hockey games… too bad the Habs couldn’t pull it off tonight… they deserved to win 🙁 But anyways, onto more important stuff!!
When I first read the title, I thought that it’d have something along the lines of seeing how and why God created us. I figured that it’d have a lot to do with his unending and unconditional love. But no: it dealt with how we view our own lives, and how God views life (as described in the Bible). One of the first quotes in the chapter is from Anais Nin: “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
So basically, our perception of life greatly influences the way we live it. I suppose that this is only common sense, but he went into some detail about “life metaphors” – an image that would describe our life. He went on to list some examples: a circus, a roller coaster, a dance… And there’s an associated personality with these metaphors; for example, life as a battle will drive someone to pursue victory at high costs.
He then suggests three metaphors offered by the Bible: a test, a trust, and a temporary assignment. Only the first two are discussed in this chapter, though. I will agree wholeheartedly that life is a test. I believe God and Satan are having a cosmic tug-of-war for each and every soul, and how I react pulls me towards one end. Every action has huge implications.. sort of what I was talking about yesterday. I’m a little bit less comfortable with the notion of trust, although I can certainly see this basic principle: what we have is given to us and, one day, it will be taken away. Be it our talents, possessions, or the world around us, God gave it to us. And since it’s not ours, we should take good care of it. Makes sense.
He ends off talking about managing money and how it tests our trustworthiness. His point is that if we are untrustworthy with our worldly possessions, how could we handle the true riches in Heaven? I struggle with this. I know that I spend money rather stupidly at times, and there are a lot of better places that it could go. Yes, I have been trying to give more to charities and stuff, but not nearly the amount that I could. It’s hard, maybe because I am still selfish, and maybe because I don’t directly see the good of the donation come to fruition. I don’t know. But I’ll need to believe that I’m doing something right when I donate. I am definitely going to donate to the Embassy this term.
Question to Consider: What has happened to me recently that I now realize was a test from God? What are the greatest matters God has entrusted to me?
The first one has so many answers… but I think I will pick something with which I have been fighting quite a bit: going to Church. For some reason, I have been becoming increasingly unhappy with going to Elevation. I don’t know why, but things just didn’t feel right. There is nothing wrong with the service or anything, but it felt off. I was determined to go Church hopping again and, for at least a couple of weeks, I elected to sleep instead. But I owe time to God, and I really felt this recently. I needed to sacrifice my time and give it up to Him instead. I think it was even more difficult this past week when I had to travel a lot farther, and alone, to Elevation and Embassy. But I made it 🙂
I believe that a lot of my talents are among the greatest matters that God has entrusted to me… a number of people comment about my well-roundedness (no, not my sumo-ness lol :P.. sorry, inside joke among some SPUC people) and how I have the ability to do a lot of things well. I think that this diversification puts me at a great position to do God’s will all the better. By not being inhibited with a very limited scope of abilities, I can accomplish a lot and spread His Word in many different ways. I haven’t done a great job yet, but I’m trying 🙂
