The longer I live, the more I am reminded, how fickle life is, and how quickly we are to kick against the goads that come against us.
Finally, if only there were a simple, easy way, or philosophical approach, that would guide us throughout our lives — to help us trustfully respond well.
Well, there is! It’s been given to us from the ancients.
It is easy in theoretical ways of understanding.
The way forward is to consider anything that would grieve us as inconsequential in comparison with something infinitely more important. That thing that is infinitely more important is the fact that we are eternal spirits.
We will only be justified in this view when we are in eternity.
Sadly, we are so fixed in this life, attached to this world, that we refuse to see what is beyond it.
Clearly, the reality of death helps us understand that this life is not all there is.
Evidence of eternity is in that concept: death. This, and the concept of an eternity nestled in each of our hearts — that surely this world, this life, isn’t all there is.
Pleading Pascal’s wager, it is far easier and wiser, and by far more beneficial in this life and in the next, overall, to subscribe to the concept of a world — a celestial shore — beyond ours.
Reframing the challenges of this life around the eternal concept is the best and right way to traverse this life.
It helps us here, and it helps us there!
This mode of thinking helps us to accept that nothing we could attain from this life can we keep.
This mode of thinking helps us live honestly, empowering us to be honest with ourselves, honest with others — thereby living our relationships the best way we can — and honestly before our eternal God.
Peace is within our grasp when we accept the things we can’t change, and have courage to change the things we can.
The spiritual life is the direct path to truth, to right living, to peace, fuelled by hope in a reality that cannot disappoint us.
An eternal hope cannot disappoint us, for we gain while we’re here through a hope borrowed from eternity.
Living a successful life is living the spiritual way, where we’re prepared to jettison the material and fleeting for something intangible and permanent.
Eternity cannot be taken from us!
And all the pain we endured in this life will only make complete sense when we arrive there.
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