Sunday, November 9, 2008

Precious Few Things

Precious few things in this world are worth our time. So few in fact, that we find ourselves wasting away with distractions, mediocre endeavors, and a random sort of miscellaneous other interests all while we wait, wait for tomorrow. Without going too deep, it truly is tomorrow that we wait for. Not because we believe that tomorrow holds the answer, but because we do not see the answer today...

I have spent my whole life waiting for an answer. Looking for one of the precious few things in this world that are worth my time, and the result of that effort has proved fruitless. Like so many of us, I worked hard in High School so that I could get into college. In college, I attempted to work hard so I could get a good job. Now in a good job, I find myself looking for the excuse of tomorrow; looking for that next day to look to, never looking to today. Why is it we are taught since birth that all of life is to be lived for our future and not for our present? Why is it we find so precious few things in life that are worth our time, when we can be fairly certain in the presence of at least 6 billion in this world.

Truth be told, the precious few things I speak of though are not those things that are worth your life's efforts, but those precious few ways in which you can serve them. I've always wanted to help people, to enable them, to set them free, to make a difference, to serve. My whole life I have tried so very hard to find the purpose for my life for which God designed me, and I have found consistently that the ways God has used me has invariably been through the use of my mind in the side notes between pages. I have found myself used by God always in my ability to grasp the world in a far more comprehensive manner than those around me, and in my ability to pass that on.

I just finished watching Good Will Hunting, and though I am certain it is likely somewhat cliche to have a realization of yourself wasting your life away after watching that movie, I found myself thinking. I found myself thinking of my childhood, my adolescence, my young adulthood, and then finally today. I thought hard about how my whole life I have never been challenged. My whole life I have not met someone I ever felt was smarter than me, more intelligent, more capable of attacking the problems of the world than me, and yet I find myself making absolutely no difference in it whilst those around me achieve, thrive, and overcome the obstacles before them. At the heart of my abysmally pathetic success in achieving my one goal, is the realization that by never being challenged, I have always looked for the limit of what I could achieve, choosing only to stop once I arrived. I have yet to find that limit, and instead have come to the limit of what the world can offer me.

What the world can offer me... Funny that this seems to become the essence and obsession of the lives of those who feel they never found their purpose. Funny that those seeking to serve, looking for those precious few ways in which they can, often find themselves hopelessly unable to find anything at all, and instead dedicate their time and energy to themselves, to what the world can offer them. We do this not because we are selfish, but because we are uninspired. Not because we are greedy and want more, but because we do not have the only thing we want, one of the precious few things in this world, a purpose.

Those who find themselves at the edge of their limits often do not find themselves encumbered by this search for purpose, but I would argue that though some may find their limit in one aspect of their life, few if any ever truly find the limit of our hearts, our minds, and our desires, and because of this, few if any of us are ever unencumbered by this search, this desire.

And so, though I may not have found what I am looking for, I have seen a glimpse. These precious few things in life that are worth our lives are what we are all searching for, and I find myself able to aid at least in part in other's searches alongside my own. Not because I find myself to be superior in any way, but because I see what others cannot see, I know what others may not ever know, and because I have a love for those that few besides God may ever love, and that is the purpose for this blog: my precious few things, which I can impart onto you.