Thursday, December 30, 2021
What profit is there to the worker from that in which he toils? I have seen the task which God has given the sons of men with which to occupy themselves. Ecclesiastes 3:9-10
A Life of Meaning
This year may not have been the year you had hoped for. Satan has been working overtime to steal our abundant like in Jesus lately. How successful was he at: stealing, killing and destroying the life Jesus died to give you?
Living a life of meaning and impact is not about doing something different but doing what we do with purpose. Looking back over the past year, how many hours were lost to God your family and others? That is not something we like to think about, but we can be intentional about not losing more time with them this year.
The circumstances of life have no value in and of themselves, yet we often hinge our whole attitude on them. We even make lots of decisions based on our circumstances. There are a lot of things we can leave behind going into a new year, but our circumstances is not one of them. We simply have to learn how to live the best we can until we get through them. They are a part of life, even if we create them for ourselves, but we still do not have to live defeated in them. Some negative effects of living in circumstances with no purpose:
Circumstances w/o purpose produces weariness. We do things for a variety of reasons. When we truly think about why we do things, we often find that the majority of what we call "motivations" are actually "coercions"... external pressures. These external pressures are what causes us to "toil" in life as the verse above says. Toil is defined as work, extremely hard or incessantly, or exhausting physical labor. It is not a positive thing in the Bible. Work is meaningful and purposeful done in line with the calling of God over our lives. Toil is meaningless work which is a curse. It is always excessive and rooted in unbelief and is caused by worry.
God never intended for us to “toil away” our lives. We usually toil in our work because we lack purpose, we have created some negative circumstances that we have to work thorough, or we are running from or ignoring what God is telling us to do. We will just “get through” this life if we lack, or lose, purpose.
· When you lose your purpose, you will lose your energy.
· When you lose your purpose, you will lose your peace.
· When you lose your purpose, you will lose your joy.
· When you lose your purpose, you will lose your life.
Circumstance w/o purpose produces boredom. Physical weariness can certainly drag us down, but it is not as depressing a mental weariness. If our heart is not involved we will have no initiative...no life in our labor. We are seeing young people busier than any other generation and yet twice as bored with life.
Circumstance w/o purpose produces emptiness. "Unfulfilled" is the key descriptive word for people in our world today. We have generated the capacity to get anything we want and yet still can't get what we need. There are millions that come to the end of life and still don't know why they lived it.
God's design and desire is to control our lives to bring about that purpose and give us the fulfillment He desires. A valid question for today is "How much of daily life is under God's control?" It is the man who knows God's purpose that can also discover His power and peace in life.
Being responsible to God with time in life can bring us the peace, joy, and fulfillment we have been trying to produce on our own. You can enter this new year with purpose instead of “toiling away” another year. Give your life, your plans, your desires, and your time to Him and ask control your life to bring about the purpose and fulfillment that He already has for you.
