I believe all human beings have an inborn desire to create, labor profitably, to contribute. I also believe all of that wars in us with selfishness and greed and fear. I believe that God speaks persistently to our higher longings and urges us to use our best gifts in ways that bless ourselves, and God's other children, and reflects God's goodness into the world. But our brokenness gets in the way.
This brokenness is why someone with a passion and great skill in a sport can slip off into the person who succumbs to illegal and dangerous performance enhancing drugs: they want what they want when they want it. This is why the entrepreneur, delighted that his product or service can bring benefits to customers and jobs to employees, is drawn into illegal and dangerous business practices. This is why the passionately protective mother fails to allow a struggling child to find their own way through, without overstepping in ways that undermine confidence.
When we trust God to help us find our gifts, apply the lessons provided along the way and trust in God's timing, the temptations to force an outcome that is not the highest and most productive outcome for us and for all God's creation, keeps us from throwing the well-being of others under the bus in our determination to "succeed." The more we rely on God to put our abilities to work in the best ways, while also building a life of purpose and joy, the more we know true success...not the success of money or fame or political power, but of deep peace and abiding love and a growing sense of awe that God's plans are so much more effective than our own -- and they don't trample the needs and joys of others along the way.
I can affirm with confidence and hope: I TRUST GOD TO MAKE MY EFFORTS BEAR GOOD FRUIT.
1 Timothy 6:6 Actually, godliness is a great source of profit when it is combined with being happy with what you already have.
This brokenness is why someone with a passion and great skill in a sport can slip off into the person who succumbs to illegal and dangerous performance enhancing drugs: they want what they want when they want it. This is why the entrepreneur, delighted that his product or service can bring benefits to customers and jobs to employees, is drawn into illegal and dangerous business practices. This is why the passionately protective mother fails to allow a struggling child to find their own way through, without overstepping in ways that undermine confidence.
When we trust God to help us find our gifts, apply the lessons provided along the way and trust in God's timing, the temptations to force an outcome that is not the highest and most productive outcome for us and for all God's creation, keeps us from throwing the well-being of others under the bus in our determination to "succeed." The more we rely on God to put our abilities to work in the best ways, while also building a life of purpose and joy, the more we know true success...not the success of money or fame or political power, but of deep peace and abiding love and a growing sense of awe that God's plans are so much more effective than our own -- and they don't trample the needs and joys of others along the way.
I can affirm with confidence and hope: I TRUST GOD TO MAKE MY EFFORTS BEAR GOOD FRUIT.
1 Timothy 6:6 Actually, godliness is a great source of profit when it is combined with being happy with what you already have.
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