And doesn't life really feel that way? We wake up, we do whatever we do, and by the end of the day, we sleep for another day. If life is one of the most precious gifts given us, then why do we find that days blur together? How come MOST days of my life are forgettable? I might as well have been asleep for half my life for all I got out of it...right? I love God, and I know God loves me, but too often, and all the more recently, that realization doesn't seem to be epic enough to answer the ultimate question of life: "how do i find meaning in it?"
Today, some profound things were uttered, and I began to understand how to answer that question. A brother shared this passage:
"I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little"
Paul knew the answer. It will be an ongoing lesson to learn how to serve God in trials and through the most difficult of situations; yet I've found that I'm most in danger not when I am suffering, but when I am thriving. I am closer to knowing how to live on almost nothing than I am in knowing how to live with everything. And now, don't I have everything? I have people to talk to, more food than I can eat that I have to store things for later and keep leftovers, a bed with several layers to keep me warm, movies and books to keep me entertained, the Bible to read and believers with whom to fellowship with. If I keep studying and follow a program already laid out before me, then I will be a respected doctor with a salary. And what is my greatest problem? that I am bored.
And for now, the answer I have come up with is that I lack compassion. In my abundance, I am not giving. In my everything, I ignore those with nothing. Instead, my first thought is study. When 30 minutes pass by, I think to myself "that was 30 minutes I could have studied. or at least worked out." I study and forget to pray. Compassion. There is a small section in Matthew, a prelude to where Jesus sends out the Twelve. It reads:
"When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few..'"
Jesus had compassion everyday for those he walked amongst. Who am I amongst? I don't walk among the hungry in Ethiopia or the oppressed in Indonesia. For now, I walk among secular medical students - but I have no compassion for them. Rather, the temptation to live a secular lifestyle, reinforced by the demands and motivations of the medical profession keep me actively trying to distance myself. And so, I don't have compassion. and I don't know how to live on a full stomach. and I am bored, and I question the meaning of each of my days.
The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.
0 comments:
Post a Comment