The Energy Source for Life: Living the Abundant Life
“When a man (woman) is able to bring to bear upon a single purpose all the powers of his (her) being, his (her) whole life is energized and vitalized.”
Howard Thurman Disciplines of the Spirit p. 19
Thurman calls on us to find that purpose, that thing that calls us, consumes us, inspires us and gives us life. That thing that gives us life will sustain our life. That thing that gives us life will fuel our life and give us the will to go on in the midst of struggle and hard-times.
That thing, that thing you do. That thing you enjoying doing. That thing you do so well that people will pay for it. That thing that comes natural to you even though you have developed it. That thing that you go to bed thinking about and wake up doing. That thing you can talk about all day and never tire. That thing you read about, watch YouTube videos about, that thing that fills up your Facebook timeline, Instagram and Twitter feed. That is the thing that Thurman is talking about, that thing that gives you abundant life.
John 10:10
The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows). The Amplified Bible
John 10:10
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. NRSV
To have the abundant life that Jesus talks about we have to find that thing that give us life. Jesus came to show us the light as he was the light. Jesus came to shed light on darkness. We are in the dark when we are doing things for a living that don’t give us life. We are in the darkness when we are doing things to pay the bills that extract life out of us. If paying the bills is killing us we will die paying bills. To live the abundant life means we have found that thing that we can bring all our powers to and that thing gives us power.
To have the abundant life is to have a life filled with that which gives you life and light. It takes work to find that thing(s). You have to try stuff, be willing to fail, be willing to start and stop, be willing to quit and restart, be retrained, change careers and possibly start over (again and again). We have to be honest with ourselves about what we want and then be willing to pay the price to get it.
The thief is the thing(s) we do that suck the life out of us. The things that bring us down and makes our lives dark. These things steal our hope, they steal our joy and are thus they are evil in the sense that they drain us. They don’t sustain us. We can sometimes find ourselves in careers, jobs, relationships or majors in college that are stealing from us. If we continue to do that thing(s) we are complicit in the crime of theft. The thing we are stealing is the abundant life that Jesus came to offer. Do want the abundant life? What are you willing to do to make your life more abundant?
Blessings,
Ralph Basui Watkins
Ralph Basui Watkins, MFA, PhD
“The scholar with a camera!”
Good words! Thanks.
ReplyDelete