Who among us could not use more hope, some extra energy, and joy, not to mention a little peace? This journey we call life has become so hectic that we rarely have time to think, let alone plan for the future. Progressively we live our lives at the pace of the internet that flies around the world with increasing speed. We are overwhelmed with information to the point of being unable to know, really know, what is right and wrong, what is accurate, and what is misleading. We have come to live our lives for the moment. What seems right in the moment is what we do without taking time to think through what went before or what the consequences will be in the future. Conditioned by today’s culture, we often operate on maximizing our personal happiness instead of stopping to process what might be best for all people in the long run. Our busy-ness and our focus on self are not the only deterrents to joy, energy, and hope.
In this fast-paced world we are never allowed to be alone. We never have time for reflection. Our minds are bombarded with “noise.” Everywhere we go we are met with distractions. There is background music as we shop. There are televisions in waiting rooms at doctors offices and in restaurants. When we are in our car we turn on the radio, call on our phones, and text, and when we are at home we turn on the TV and stereo and surf the Web to avoid the silence. You don’t have to be a teenager to twitter, to blog, and to be on Facebook, or any one of the growing numbers of media where we can post our personal stuff and where we can read about others. All of this makes us feel connected, but in reality we have no real relationships or commitments. We are becoming exhausted by this constant motion, and worse, we are becoming empty. To fill this emptiness we crave more of what put us in that shape in the first place. We reach for more possessions, more pleasure, more and faster technology, and more of what makes the “me” in us happy, but that only creates a bigger and emptier hole inside. What are we to do?
It is not at all surprising that we seek enjoyment, happiness, love, and pleasure, because we were created for these very qualities, but we have lost our way. We are looking for them in all the wrong places. We crave love but have lowered our understanding of love to mean a feeling or emotion, and too often that emotion comes from our own wants and desires. Love if it is real love will be manifested in actions that will do what is best for others, but even that can be distorted. Real love must be like God’s love. It will be based on his righteousness and justice and will result in peace. God’s love, righteousness, justice, and peace are beautiful, the highest beauty the mind or heart can imagine because God is holy. God’s love, righteousness, justice, and peace bring healing and wholeness because God holiness balances those things that we perceive to be opposed each other such as righteousness and peace or love and judgment. Real love will be holy love. Real righteousness will be holy righteousness. Real grace will be holy grace. Real mercy will be holy mercy. All of these things that fulfill and satisfy us are offered to everyone through Jesus, the Christ. His blood shed on the cross paid the penalty for all the wrong things we have done if we believe in him. Because He is holy, we are called to be holy for we are to be transformed into his image.
If you are looking for something more in life or are looking for ways to reach others with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and grow deeper in your relationship with God, please join me on this journey of recovering the holiness of God in our century for ourselves and our communities.
To begin, go to my blogs titled Understanding Holiness andThe Journey
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