There are many reasons why people end up wasting their lives. Some can’t quite muster up the courage, knowing that living a life that counts requires sacrifice of the things they enjoy. Their comfortable situation is just too valuable to them.
Others are just too busy. They are so focused on climbing the corporate ladder (or some other symbolic ladder), that they forget to check if their ladder is leaning on the right house. Still others, know ing what it takes, just decide that its simply too hard. They would rather cover over the emptiness and lack of meaning with fun and toys which they hope will help them cope.
I think that almost all the roadblocks to meaning can be summed up in one word, “desire.” For most people, the daily desire for comfort, recreation, and accolades outweigh the desire for meaning. Yet we all know, that in reality a meaningful life is tremendously more important than the latter.
One of my favorite authors, CS Lewis wrote, “... it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
One of the best ways we can grow in our desire for Christ and his kingdom, is not to suppress our desires, but to cultivate the right kind of desires in our souls.
For me, mobilizing others to love and serve is one of the best cultivators in my spiritual life. This past week, Amanda and I helped facilitate a service project for a church from Ames, IA.
The youth came down and painted a elderly widow’s house in an urban area of Kansas City, KS. Before they arrived there was a lot of peeling paint and bare wood. Two days later, the entire house was a beautiful new brownish-gray color with white trim. It was hard work, but there is something about hard work and service that is a means of grace to the one who serves, (and to the one facilitating that service).
It is easy to say that this project was just as much about my joy and desire as it was about the joy of Grand Avenue Baptist in Ames and the joy of this elderly widow in Kansas City, KS.
I pray that your joy this month will also be full and meaningful as you support and mobilize these types of ministries through your prayers and giving.
