Somehow we find it easier to hold on or resist change in some vanishing hope to avoid pain and discomfort. But, sometimes we stand to gain more by loss or change than we otherwise would have, despite that resounding pain and discomfort. At one point or another, we inevitably find the current situation so much more unbearable than any conceivable perturbation resulting from adjustment; exhausted of all emotional and physical energies, we tacitly assent. To our amazement, catharsis awaits and, like cultivating virgin fields, we find health and growth in abundance.
In all of us, there burns a desire that drives us to excellence by its realization or to mediocrity by its attenuation. It was ours at conception and it exists in us until death. It is basic like that which instructs our heart to beat and our cells to reproduce; it asks for neither our permission to exist nor our opinions of its presence; furthermore, we can neither alter it nor extinguish it. Like a great galaxial disc rotating endlessly around that massive, elusive interior, we too will be, if we allow ourselves, drawn into our own interior; our purpose in existence.
For those of us who seek out our purpose, the ecstasy of knowing it seems to hover just beyond the grasp of our consciousness, and as we seek to learn of it, we see only fitful glimpses of it like a spotlight atop a storm tossed boat in the void of night. Our hearts, aching to know it, rage within us like the angry sea. On the other hand, for those of us who do not seek it out, before long, life will exhale a sigh of relief and they will depart from this existence having missed their one opportunity to fulfill the reason for which they were born.
However, if we find ourselves so desperate for this knowledge that we would stop at nothing to attain it, there echoes a voice, expressing to us with the loudest of volumes that will drown out all others. It beseeches us to take action and make every step a calculated event. Now that voice beckons and we will have to choose, diligent effort or hopeless wandering. Will we obey the call? Unfortunately, no journey to realizing our purpose will be without pain and suffering. On the other hand, “suffering helps us clarify our priorities and focus on the right objectives. The deeper the pain, the clearer the vision. The more we hurt, the better we determine what really matters.”1
Now, here we stand in the middle of that portentous impasse, on the morning of our future, watching the brilliant rays break over the yet unknown horizon of our destiny. With the sun rising, the path we must take will certainly become clearer and, the image from the bridge of the boat will begin to focus as the storm clears and the tumbling sea begins to rest. But, as we look both ways our hearts may sink, for all we see in both directions are the shimmering waves of heat ascending from the warming pavement. We must press on though, for if “…progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be,”2 then onward we must go towards the purpose that we know is ours. So, choose wisely, for life will soon exhale a sigh of relief, and we will all depart from this existence knowing only that we have attained it, or that it was within our grasp and we have lost it forever.
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1 Job: A Man of Heroic Endurance, Charles R. Swindoll
2 Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis
I do have many questions.
Most are difficult to answer.
I believe, however, that ‘difficulty’ does not beseech ignorance. Difficulty offers a choice; some choose to diligently search for answers, many choose to remain an ignorant bystander. I choose diligence. I choose to search.
Newton said, “If I see a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” I believe that as a race, humans can achieve great knowledge and understanding. I want to be a part of that process.
I won’t be satisfied unless I’m searching for the answers to those questions.
