Words of Wisdom, Email Newsletter
Plant seeds of wisdom today
Take the next 36 or so breaths slowly and reflect deeply on your life. I hope these words help you grow in you the most valuable treasure in life: wisdom. Wisdom grows imperceptibly but flourishes like a mighty oak, standing the test of time
WoW 108: On determining what you want. Questions, Part 2
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Sometimes we are so busy with the status quo, or looking at what others are doing, we fail to pray and reflect deeply on what is most important for us to be doing.
It doesn't really matter what others are doing. That's out of your control.
What matters is that you steward what God has entrusted to you.
What matters is that you are earnestly headed in a purposeful direction.
What matters is that you are showing up each day, open to whatever God has for you.
What matters is that you feed the fire of passion and courageously take the next step forward.
What matters is that you focus your life on loving and serving others.
But sometimes it is difficult to identify what matters most.
To cut through the uncertainty, learn to ask powerful questions.
Asking powerful questions, in a helpful order, is a powerful tool for self discovery.
If you aren't sure what to want, focus your desire on what will help other people.
Look to people who best model helping others, and seek to be shaped by their desires.
Then take action in becoming as skilled as possible in helping others.
The more you desire creating value for others, the better everything will be for you and others in the long run.
Quotes
"Girard believed that all true desire—the post-instinctual kind—is metaphysical. People are always in search of something that goes beyond the material world. If someone falls under the influence of a model who mediates the desire for a handbag, it’s not the handbag they are after. It’s the imagined newness of being they think it will bring. “Desire is not of this world,”"
Luke Burgis, Wanting
“Jesus’s command to follow him is a command to align our loves and longings with his—to want what God wants, to desire what God desires, to hunger and thirst after God and crave a world where he is all in all—a vision encapsulated by the shorthand “the kingdom of God.”
James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love
Questions
What do you want?
What is actually underneath what you want?
Will accomplishing what you want, get you what you really want?
How valuable is what you want?
What are the most meaningful desires you can have?
To what degree do you desire the simple and quiet life?
How close are God's desires and your desires?
(Use these questions as a journal prompt and prayers this week)
Endnote
Taking action without taking meaningful action is a way to look busy but lacks substance. Continue to take time to ask yourself about what you want, honing your desires so that you can take the most meaningful actions possible.
Live wisely,
Josh
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