People seem to be happy with damndest things. They go through life going from job to job, starting at $7.25 an hour working to $350,000 annually. Even if it’s not all about income, then it’s about equally unsatisfying things. It’s about having a fashionable career, or an old house in a quiet neighborhood. It’s about having a marriage, even when all partners die. It’s about bodybuilding, or being emaciated enough to go to the beach. It’s about being the most involved in church, so that everyone can see how good you are. It’s about finding the right words to make any woman in the world melt. I’ve seen our entire species pursue things that aren’t worth as much as a well-stained wooden board because they will not one of them fulfill man’s purpose. I don’t want enough income to spend on a forty-thousand dollar SUV or porn or daycare so that I won’t ever have to see my kids. That won’t make me happy. I don’t want just a quiet life in a safe suburb fifteen minutes from the city with a backyard that I can lay in. Financial soundness and a backyard that I can sleep in and feel safe would be fantastic, but what happens when I leave it at dawn and go to a job that I despise with writhing passion? I don’t want to rot in alcoholism and lung cancer. Where is the happiness that these things bring? They will damn man and prevent him from performing his innate function.
I want to glorify my maker. I want to show off the artisanry of the master artisan, the adventurous spirit of the ultimate adventurer. I want to love like the creator of love. I want to drive down an unfamiliar street and look not with contempt upon the homeless, but instead see only opportunities to serve the weak. I want to love a companion, and everyday show her the love that God has placed in me for her. I want to educate all, not with a sense that I know more, but with a sense that the Teacher has entrusted me with an understanding of the things that shape our world to share with and enlighten others. I want not to impress my own will upon my miserable little life, but rather I want to act upon the Lord. I want to avoid silly religious clichés and glow with the genuine. I want to avoid my innate and almost overbearing cynicism and believe in the reality that God has promised me. I want to listen to Yusaf Islam and not judge his religious subscription, but glow with pride that God has blessed the world with his sounds. I want to write; but not for just the sake of stringing words together. I want to overcome my biological inhibition and express because with written words the free thought that Christ has blessed me with. I want to sit in a coffee shop and not judge the children, but revel in the fact that God has created joyous life in their noise. I want to live for my purpose; I want to bring glory to my Father. I don’t want to just live for the eternity that he has promised. Even if he hadn’t, I would still seek his interest. I don’t want a meaningless middle-class life. I want to subscribe to realism, and abandon pessimism. The glory of Jehovah is the only worthwhile reason to live. I don’t want the things that I am not looking for. I want this.
This makes our days bearable.
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