Your Course Is Not Of This World

I remember one sunny afternoon on a highway somewhere in Virginia with my sister driving the SUV and I was on the passenger seat. I looked out the window and saw birds flying in a formation and then there was this one bird which seemed to be with the group but happened to be flying solo at a distance. I remember telling my sister I identified with that bird. This wasn’t the bird that was at the front of the formation but more like a solitary bird at the very back of the formation. It would seem like a negative thing, doesn’t it? But I see that bird as one who happened to have an epiphany and one not afraid to break from the mold.

The world has a lot of guidelines which dictates that to be something, we have to have this or that and to be good at something, we must not do this and do that and frankly, when we decide to listen to a counsel that is based on the ever changing self-centered standards of this world, we would find ourselves chasing the impossible. How can you possibly satisfy a world that does not go by anything absolute? It only keeps raising the bar higher and higher and in our case today, the new standard is conforming to a non standard, and when you refuse to conform because you know it’s not even close to being a standard, you become a pariah.

God created each one of us differently and as we yield to His will for us, He slowly leads us to our purpose, whatever that may be. The secular world happens to think we are simply extant devoid of any purpose. Do you truly believe that? If that were true, then why does one choose to continue to live? Wouldn’t that very choice indicate the belief of a purpose? I don’t know how philosophers can cook up some warped pseudo-intellectual jargon and push such nonsense in colleges and dub it as higher learning. What a miserable thought, to just go about life meandering aimlessly…

It may seem fun for a time and it is; I remember my own accounts vividly, but that kind of life happens to always return void with the desire to only crave for more; more thrill, more high, more palliative, more of the world… But I thought when you get more of the world you get satisfied? You can go ask the dead rockers and actors who happened to have had a whole lot more of everything the world has to offer but ended up completely with nothing but emptiness and hopelessness, seeing death as the only escape, and what a wrong assumption! Death without Christ is the farthest thing from being an escape. It is only the beginning of eternal sorrows!

So, when you get a nagging thought to obey the dictates of this world, ask yourself, Who am I listening to? Am I listening to the lifegiving Spirit of God dwelling in me or the world which promises much but leaves you empty?

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Romans 12:2 ESV

[Image Credit: UsaToday (tweaked)]