Meaning of circumstances...Hope when your world comes crashing down
Another week has gone by in my life, just like that, in the blink of an eye and still I have not done what I had originally set out to do with my holiday…i.e. to make more out of a pretty boring several months now already. But, with my world literally crashing down and grinding to a halt the week before in one of my more depressing moments in my life, I don’t know maybe it would be fair to say that because of this fact, I’ve not done what I’ve set out to do. So anyway, the past week has been sort of like a recovery period for me, not that everything is that bad or that everything in my life going great at the moment.
Basically, the whole issue is that I feel like in all the major aspects of my life I have not truly lived my life the way it should be lived, like relationships, academics, experiencing life, pursuing my dreams, goals, ambitions and interests, spiritually and I’ve failed in so many ways. I mean yet on the other hand, there really isn’t much like really not going well in my life, it’s just that I feel like I’m just existing and not living, and it’s like everything I hope for in my life is fading into just a distant unrealistic dream. So, that is what this whole good and bad thing is about. I’m living comfortably but can’t make something more out of my life. The past week I seriously didn’t do much and I can’t really rmb much that went on coz everything I did I was just going through the motions almost except for my Bible reading due to the fact that preoccupying my mind was a thought that is both philosophical and profound about life which I needed to understand, and it was just as much about the Christian life as it was a deep thought.
It’s like I was trying to make sense of the things that have been happening in my life, like how everything in my life seems to have fallen apart and like the good that I’m desperately hoping for God is going to make of my life. My thought began like this, so yea, I’ve learned and know that bad things in this world happen because we live in a fallen world but the Lord uses all these things ultimately for His glory and also to shape our character, well in essence for good. And, all these become part of the plan of God to lead our lives in the direction that He points. But, God also uses the good things that come from Him for His glory. It made me ponder then, about so then why do we need good things, if God can just use all the bad things to build our character since yea life isn’t just about the here and now and God wants to use these difficult circumstances to develop our character. And, like I began to wonder that why should there be a drive and motivation to try to achieve the good things in life, a great career, awesome family life, experiencing life to the fullest and enjoying life and being successful in life. Like I began to question also what really matters in life too. After all, right now my life is like falling apart…so where is the place for good in my life or in life for that matter…why is there a need for everything to not be falling apart…and even more fundamentally, where is the HOPE in life if everything I’ve been working for doesn’t even fulfil itself in my life. And, I really wondered about the reason that it seems almost like in every area of life that is under God’s purpose for life are not coming together such that I can achieve these things with my life. But, this week, with all my free time it gave me time to read God’s word, have prayer, read other material and do some serious thinking and soul searching, to find out what the meaning of every thing that’s going on in life and in my life for that matter.
And, of course parts of this view as above about life, dreams and hope are unthinkable in that God would never leave us nor forsake us but I feel it’s almost like what Paul does in the Book of Romans in talking about the question about why not continue to sin so that grace increases? But then, rebutting it with certainly not! I just feel like by finding this out by my own thought, it would do me a great deal of good, with the help of the right sources of course. Especially, that this issue has a lot to do with trusting in God, the Lord of my life and future…coz surely my life cannot be hopeless with the Lord my God as Lord of my life. It is just like my cry to God, to tell Him how I feel…like how I feel hopeless but yet still I’m trying my best, trusting and waiting on the Lord. So here are the things that have come out of this, a mixture of my thoughts, events, quotes from the Bible and two books I’ve been reading again, one of which being by the title of Soul Cravings…
To begin with, below is a sequence of thoughts to answer to this difficult question of life. I basically started with the realisation that life cannot stay bad forever…so of course there is good in life and it is part of God’s plan for all our lives, this came as I felt like things were hopelessly bad and I was seriously questioning the good in life. And, I moved on to remembering God promises that God has a plan, for everything that happens even as in my case, that is perfect and good. But, on the other hand, I realise and accept that sometimes God has a different but better plan for us than what we think best for ourselves or what we want. God’s will may not be leading us to do things we so desire, but then again as Christians our desire should be to do God’s will, so in that sense through God’s will we may do what we desire…of course Man is not perfect so what we think we desire actually is to desire what God intended for us. And, God has a purpose for everyone, He has our best interest at heart and he uses bad things for good, also builds our character and uses it for His ultimate purpose which is to glorify His name. So, actually it doesn’t matter what we do as long as we do it for God’s glory.
Then, it led me to the next issue, so then, everything else doesn’t matter anymore? But, I guess, well, it is true that everything we can hope for in life is meaningless unless we know we are living for and that is for God’s glory. And, that means that there is no way that God would not allow us to achieve in an area that we can glorify the Lord. For sure, all we need is God alone, but in all the things in life, we should strive to be successful so as to glorify God in whatever we do with our lives, and that is not to say that even in our failures we cannot glorify the Lord. But, here is where the key is and that is AMBITION. That is what motivates us to progress and it is from God…this I will give a description of later from the book Soul Cravings below. Ambition that has glorifying God as central to it is basically the way it works. So, coming back to me situation right now, I must say that though my life seems to be falling apart, and in fact is kind of true, in that I seem quite far from my dream for my life and in all my areas of my life I’m in no way achieve what I should and I feel so hopeless, God has a future for me and that I need faith to know and to trust. And, I know that I don’t have to do well to glorify the Lord, that God’s strength in my weakness and the building of character has meaning in life in that sense, but life needs to progress and God after all uses not just the bad but the good things in life for His purpose, and good things come from the Lord, although He uses the bad things which are not from Him for good. And, the amazing thing in all of this is that it just same to link together all I’ve learned in my life so far to answer this question about life, it’s like seeing everything come together. But knowing this is just the first step, I have still so many uncertainties in my life right now, I need to have faith and trust in the future that God has for me, and I have to believe that my life will get better from where it is right now. I mean, it has to be…!!! The things that I learned in my life that I’ve used to answer this question, like being joyful in all circumstances, the purpose of life living life to the fullest, living for God’s glory, trusting and having faith in the Lord and God’s plan and will. What really concluded my answer was my final understanding that when we are doing God’s will we can never fail and we can rest assured knowing that God’s will is to prosper us and not fail us. And to glorify God is the ultimate purpose.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord,…plans to give u a hope and a future….you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all you heart.
Jeremiah 29: 11, 13.
So then, on a more personal note about how this question has been playing out in my life. Basically, I believe that it is the fact that the life of my dreams is now seemingly out of reach that I’ve been feeling not so good for awhile now, so I really don’t know like what can I hope for now and like I don’t know what to do. But, this answer to my question really made me realise that it is not possible that God would not allow me to live the life beyond my wildest dreams, He only wants the best for me. AND, LET’S BE CLEAR, OUR HOPE AND MY HOPE IS IN GOD, FOR I KNOW HE HAS A PLAN FOR ME TO PROSPER AND NOT TO FAIL ME. So I must say having found the answer to my question, was crucial as I was feeling rather trapped but now I’m feeling so much better and my passion is back and I feel spiritually good again. The past week I’ve learned a lot about life again and it is amazing that as sad as I feel that my life right now is in that I’m not using my time to do more and I’m fearing that my dream of doing product/industrial design is fading. This gives me hope in Christ that I have a future ahead of me beyond my wildest dreams. Now I shall go into the words in the books i.e. soul cravings and God’s Answer to Life’s Difficult Questions. But, just before that I just wanna say that the end of the past week was sort of the point where I started to feel better, and I guess two pieces of good news, one I’ll be representing S’pore in the SEA paragames if I’m not wrong and I’ve been invited to speak at Nanyang Primary sometime soon. And I must say that, the past two Sundays where I’ve started to go back for youth class has been pretty rewarding in that at least I spend more time studying God’s word and truly doing the book of Romans is amazing it’s like so much of what I hold dear to me is in this book. And, Church is definitely becoming what it really should be for me and I really can feel that I’m now worshipping with that same passion again and I thank God. Hope these signs are that I’m getting back to the time when everything was awesome…
Now then, to start, from Rick Warren’s book God’s Answers to Life’s Difficult Questions, I looked up about depression and “Why is This Happening to me”. The mistakes we make when we are depressed is that we have incorrect attitudes, we do not focus on facts not feelings, we compare ourselves with others and take false blame. We also exaggerate the negative, and I must say the last point is probably the most true to my situation, I guess complaining about doing nothing with my life and about not being able to go to uni when the acceptance period isn’t over yet. But, we are to take care of physical needs, give our frustrations to God, get fresh awareness of God’s presence and gain a new direction in life. I think really my life feels really directionless in this, so I think I need to seek the Lord to give me a new direction now that all else has failed. And, I should stop looking at myself as I will get discouraged more but to look to needs of others instead. When we are depressed often we think how can God ever use me since I’ve failed. We can never be disappointed as long as we are God Disappointment only happens when someone expects us to do something different from who u are. Let God give us new direction and purpose especially personally I feel like I’ve lost my direction in life with my dreams seemingly slipping away but I believe God has a direction for me in my life so I’m not giving up hope of my dreams just yet…
Joseph in the Bible says this “You intended to harm me but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives”. God sees everything we go thru and he cares. God has given everyone freedom of choice and so bad things happen coz God’s will is not always done but God is in ultimate control and can bring good out of bad. When we think everything in our life is falling apart God has the final say. We must not be bitter and dwell in self pity. We must never give up on God’s plan.
In all things God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose.
Romans 8: 28
God makes all things good and bad for good. God has our best interest at heart and uses bad things for the good overall purpose in our lives. We need to look at things from perspective. It may be difficult but God uses the situation in a great purposeful way. We should turn to the promise of God, the people of God and the presence of God. Turn to God with our free will and He will turn an ugly situation into good. God can bring out the best even when everything has fallen apart but turn to God and He will put the pieces back together.
Then, next as I came to the book Soul Cravings just for reading sakes I realise that it somehow was related to my situation and help me with the answer to my question also. My thought process went this was, so God gives us dreams and ambitions for a reason. But, why would give us dreams if we cannot achieve them, a fuel for life I guess? Well, God gives us some dreams to materialise and other as a fuel. If not to materialise there is a reason for God giving us dreams but depending on God’s will which is actually what is best for us.
hope, there is life. Below is a compilation of the important things mentioned in the book Soul Cravings under the section about DESTINY…in the way that it spoke to me…
If you’re presently a coward desperately trying to avoid any stress, unnecessary pressure, or unforeseen danger, you might call it a design flaw, but we humans are most alive when we passionately pursue out dreams, live with a purpose, and have a sense of destiny. We thrive when we are optimistic about the future. It seems failure is no match for the person who believes in the future. When we see failure as personal, pervasive or permanent, we become paralysed. Bottom line: we cannot live the life of our dreams without an irrational sense of destiny. All of us long to become something more than we are. We are driven to achieve, moved to accomplish, fuelled by ambition. We’re all searching for our unique purpose, our divine destiny, or simply a sense of significance or some measure of success. When we are optimistic about the future, we find energy to create it. We all desperately want to achieve something, to accomplish something; we just don’t know what. To even in the smallest of ways make a difference in someone else’s life is amazing. And, it is amazing how is it as children we imagine a life we have never known. What’s the motivation to change? You’ll never have it better. Ambition and passion is. In fact, when we’re young and less grounded in reality, we dream bigger and more ridiculous dreams. Life is about accomplishment not just survival. Progress too. Childhood curiosity was the secret to Einstein’s success.
Passion, desire, drive and ambition are what we express as we aspire and strive to achieve, to accomplish, and to attain. We have an internal need to achieve some kind of success or to somehow find significance. Pursuing the future we desire energizes and inspires us. All of us want to create a better life, a better future, a better us. Whether it’s striving for success or longing for significance, whether it’s trying to create a better world or become a better person, there is a drive within us all. You can live without pursuing a dream, you can function without passion, but with each passing moment, you soul will become more and more anemic. We humans are instinctively ambitious. When we dream, our dreams naturally gravitate toward greatness. For most of us coming in last among the best would be a farfetched dream, yet we don’t dream like this. We dream of greatness, we dream ambitiously. Whatever inspires us, we begin to dream that one day we will be the best. It is only as we lose our childlike innocence that we begin to settle for far less. It is easy to say that is part of growing up and that growing up seems to be acquiescing to mediocrity. We say it is being realistic but it is the death of our souls. Then there is the Bumblebee effect. There were many people along the way who told Randy that his dream to fly would never come to fruition due to his physical condition but he did. We would think that the quality of life of someone with a disability would be greatly reduced but that does not stop one from achieve one’s dreams.
We have been called out of the mundane into a life beyond our wildest imagination. We have a mission, a purpose, a destiny. The butterfly effect proposes that small and apparently insignificant events can set in motion a chain of events with far reaching consequences. The bumblebee effect describes how great and apparently impossible dreams can set in motion a chain of events resulting in a seemingly insignificant person living an extraordinary life. I’ve never bought into the adage” If you can dream it, you can do it.” That’s not because of a lack of imagination but because of an abundance of it. There are just so many things I can dream that I was not designed to do. We may not be able to accomplish everything we can dream but we will not accomplish anything without our dreams. That is not to say that things don’t happen beyond our wildest dreams, but that effect seems to come into play only when we are pursuing wild dreams. We often underestimate what we are capable of doing. And, the wonderful thing is that just as the bee was not designed to fly but flies, in life purpose overrides design.
What happens when your life just can’t live up to your dreams? There comes this huge sense of dissatisfaction with life. We can’t live without dreams. Dreams inspire us. Without dreams, we have nothing to pull us forward. A life in God is never absent of dreams. God designed us to dream because he created us to create. Dreams are a voice of hope. Many of us either lose our ambition, or we come to believe that ambition is a bad thing. Not only is ambition a good thing, it is also a God thing. You cannot live the life God created you to live without being ambitious. Spirit is drawn to greatness. Many of us have come to believe ambition is unhealthy but the truth is when you lose ambition you lose your future. When you lose your future, you lose hope. And no one can live well without hope. Without ambition we have no dreams worth living. When we let our dreams due, we start dying with them. We have a need for progress and to become. The future is not simply entered into, it is created. To create we must first dream, and then act. We were created to strive for progress and to pursue it with passion. Sincere people have deferred their responsibility while waiting on God to do something, but it has created a spirituality that lacks initiative and engagement. This goes against the nature of the human spirit, and it goes against the way God has created us. God created us to engage and solve problems, meet needs and do something with our lives.
God calls us out of the life we have known and calls us to a life we have never imagined. It is important to fully live each moment, but equally important to make sure that we do not live only for this moment. We have to believe in tomorrow to function well today. It will never be enough for us to simply exist, and if all we have is now, our souls will starve from lack of nourishment. Without a future there is no hope, and hope is essential for our souls to thrive. Hope exists only in the future, and if the future doesn’t exist, there is no hope. Without hope, there is only despair. You only feel sense of destiny when you are filled with hope. We all need to believe we have a future and a hope. If you don’t believe you have a future worth living for, you spirit loses all hope and your soul was not designed to live without hope. In fact, when we lose all hope, we lose all desire to live. Hope moves us from pessimism to optimism. When there is no future, there is no hope. Where there is hope, there is no reason to live. When we are full of hope, it’s not because everything in the future is certain to us, but because the future itself is filled with promise. At same time, like the promise of a future hope comes only from something we do not yet have something we have not yet attained.
It’s not enough for us to merely exist. We are compelled to achieve this drive would not exist without a concept of time. We cannot function effectively without a belief in that which does not exist you believe in tomorrow, you believe in progress. It takes faith to believe in the future. Each and every one of us has been created with a soul craving to become something - something better, something different, something special, something unique, something admired, something valued and something more than we are. We act as if we will live forever and are constantly facing the painful truth that life can end at any moment. We should “Dream as if you live forever. Live as if you’ll die today. We are all running out of time. Awareness of death can powerfully work in our favour. When we come to the end of hope, it’s our souls that turn bad. Conscious awareness of death inspires us to live a life of passionate urgency. It is only when we lose all hope that we find ourselves incapable of moving forward. Despair means to live apart from hope or to live without a future. Our souls begin to long for God without hope your life may not come to an end but it does come to a stop.
Hope is essential for life. He who has a “why” to live can bear with almost any “how”. Their resolve and resilience to endure the unimaginable came out of souls that believed their destiny could not be thwarted by their present tragedy. A sense of destiny gives us the strength to face overwhelming obstacles and hardships. At the same time, living a life with a powerful sense of purpose gives us energy and enthusiasm to get up in the morning to face the day. Strength is unleashed within us when we are convinced our lives have a purpose yet to be fulfilled, especially when we choose a purpose beyond ourselves. Even if we never achieve our dreams we are always shaped by those dreams and the higher the purpose, the stronger the person. When we have something yet to do, something still to accomplish, we have a reason to live and we fight to stay alive. The life that is most powerfully lived is the one that finds passionate urgency fuelled by a sense of destiny. We need to have a dreamt we are pursuing and at the same time experience enough of that dream to keep us inspired. It is not only essential to keep hope alive it is hope that keeps us alive. Hope is fuelled through which we create the future. There are two kind of midlife crisis, to fall short of your dreams or to have everything but yet be empty. It is about moving from success to significance. I
If there were no God, it would be insane for us to search for significance or to be ambitious for success. There is a reason for our existence, a reason to live. Without a reason to live we don’t even have a reason to get out of bed. Most of us no matter how badly we’ve messed up our lives want to create a better life for ourselves and for those we love. There was a time when we longed to make a difference. You soul was starving for hope. The best evidence that your soul craves a destiny is that when you no longer believe you were created with a purpose and for a purpose your soul is never satisfied with the life you have.
Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalms 37:4
Many people have given up on pursuing spirituality because no one ever told them that dreams, passions and ambitions were placed there by God that they were intended to be the fuel that would drive them to pursue their dreams and visions. You can spend your whole life trying to become what you soul longs for without God. You might resent him that he’s made it so hard for you to live out your dreams of to fulfil your destiny. It’s never quite hit you that it’s in the struggle in the process even in the search for God that he is making you strong enough to take flight. Everything that drives us, every effort to succeed, every attempt to be significant, every moment we pursue a dream, advance a cause or work to make the world better in any way, is an act of hope. Where there is
So yea, this is basically what the book is saying about destiny. The writer is saying that search for our destiny leads to God and that we can live the dream in Christ.
To end, that as the song's lyrics below is about flying. Truly, let God take control and prepare us to take off and achieve greatness in our lives. It is in God that we find purpose in life. So never lose hope and always keep dreaming. Trust the Lord and have joy in Him. Coz in Christ we can live the life of our dreams.
Can you hear it calling?
Fly
All your worries, leave them somewhere else,
Can you hear it calling?
Fly
And when you're down and feel alone,
In a moment, everything can change,
Fly
Fly
In a moment, everything can change.
Basically, the whole issue is that I feel like in all the major aspects of my life I have not truly lived my life the way it should be lived, like relationships, academics, experiencing life, pursuing my dreams, goals, ambitions and interests, spiritually and I’ve failed in so many ways. I mean yet on the other hand, there really isn’t much like really not going well in my life, it’s just that I feel like I’m just existing and not living, and it’s like everything I hope for in my life is fading into just a distant unrealistic dream. So, that is what this whole good and bad thing is about. I’m living comfortably but can’t make something more out of my life. The past week I seriously didn’t do much and I can’t really rmb much that went on coz everything I did I was just going through the motions almost except for my Bible reading due to the fact that preoccupying my mind was a thought that is both philosophical and profound about life which I needed to understand, and it was just as much about the Christian life as it was a deep thought.
It’s like I was trying to make sense of the things that have been happening in my life, like how everything in my life seems to have fallen apart and like the good that I’m desperately hoping for God is going to make of my life. My thought began like this, so yea, I’ve learned and know that bad things in this world happen because we live in a fallen world but the Lord uses all these things ultimately for His glory and also to shape our character, well in essence for good. And, all these become part of the plan of God to lead our lives in the direction that He points. But, God also uses the good things that come from Him for His glory. It made me ponder then, about so then why do we need good things, if God can just use all the bad things to build our character since yea life isn’t just about the here and now and God wants to use these difficult circumstances to develop our character. And, like I began to wonder that why should there be a drive and motivation to try to achieve the good things in life, a great career, awesome family life, experiencing life to the fullest and enjoying life and being successful in life. Like I began to question also what really matters in life too. After all, right now my life is like falling apart…so where is the place for good in my life or in life for that matter…why is there a need for everything to not be falling apart…and even more fundamentally, where is the HOPE in life if everything I’ve been working for doesn’t even fulfil itself in my life. And, I really wondered about the reason that it seems almost like in every area of life that is under God’s purpose for life are not coming together such that I can achieve these things with my life. But, this week, with all my free time it gave me time to read God’s word, have prayer, read other material and do some serious thinking and soul searching, to find out what the meaning of every thing that’s going on in life and in my life for that matter.
And, of course parts of this view as above about life, dreams and hope are unthinkable in that God would never leave us nor forsake us but I feel it’s almost like what Paul does in the Book of Romans in talking about the question about why not continue to sin so that grace increases? But then, rebutting it with certainly not! I just feel like by finding this out by my own thought, it would do me a great deal of good, with the help of the right sources of course. Especially, that this issue has a lot to do with trusting in God, the Lord of my life and future…coz surely my life cannot be hopeless with the Lord my God as Lord of my life. It is just like my cry to God, to tell Him how I feel…like how I feel hopeless but yet still I’m trying my best, trusting and waiting on the Lord. So here are the things that have come out of this, a mixture of my thoughts, events, quotes from the Bible and two books I’ve been reading again, one of which being by the title of Soul Cravings…
To begin with, below is a sequence of thoughts to answer to this difficult question of life. I basically started with the realisation that life cannot stay bad forever…so of course there is good in life and it is part of God’s plan for all our lives, this came as I felt like things were hopelessly bad and I was seriously questioning the good in life. And, I moved on to remembering God promises that God has a plan, for everything that happens even as in my case, that is perfect and good. But, on the other hand, I realise and accept that sometimes God has a different but better plan for us than what we think best for ourselves or what we want. God’s will may not be leading us to do things we so desire, but then again as Christians our desire should be to do God’s will, so in that sense through God’s will we may do what we desire…of course Man is not perfect so what we think we desire actually is to desire what God intended for us. And, God has a purpose for everyone, He has our best interest at heart and he uses bad things for good, also builds our character and uses it for His ultimate purpose which is to glorify His name. So, actually it doesn’t matter what we do as long as we do it for God’s glory.
Then, it led me to the next issue, so then, everything else doesn’t matter anymore? But, I guess, well, it is true that everything we can hope for in life is meaningless unless we know we are living for and that is for God’s glory. And, that means that there is no way that God would not allow us to achieve in an area that we can glorify the Lord. For sure, all we need is God alone, but in all the things in life, we should strive to be successful so as to glorify God in whatever we do with our lives, and that is not to say that even in our failures we cannot glorify the Lord. But, here is where the key is and that is AMBITION. That is what motivates us to progress and it is from God…this I will give a description of later from the book Soul Cravings below. Ambition that has glorifying God as central to it is basically the way it works. So, coming back to me situation right now, I must say that though my life seems to be falling apart, and in fact is kind of true, in that I seem quite far from my dream for my life and in all my areas of my life I’m in no way achieve what I should and I feel so hopeless, God has a future for me and that I need faith to know and to trust. And, I know that I don’t have to do well to glorify the Lord, that God’s strength in my weakness and the building of character has meaning in life in that sense, but life needs to progress and God after all uses not just the bad but the good things in life for His purpose, and good things come from the Lord, although He uses the bad things which are not from Him for good. And, the amazing thing in all of this is that it just same to link together all I’ve learned in my life so far to answer this question about life, it’s like seeing everything come together. But knowing this is just the first step, I have still so many uncertainties in my life right now, I need to have faith and trust in the future that God has for me, and I have to believe that my life will get better from where it is right now. I mean, it has to be…!!! The things that I learned in my life that I’ve used to answer this question, like being joyful in all circumstances, the purpose of life living life to the fullest, living for God’s glory, trusting and having faith in the Lord and God’s plan and will. What really concluded my answer was my final understanding that when we are doing God’s will we can never fail and we can rest assured knowing that God’s will is to prosper us and not fail us. And to glorify God is the ultimate purpose.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord,…plans to give u a hope and a future….you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all you heart.
Jeremiah 29: 11, 13.
So then, on a more personal note about how this question has been playing out in my life. Basically, I believe that it is the fact that the life of my dreams is now seemingly out of reach that I’ve been feeling not so good for awhile now, so I really don’t know like what can I hope for now and like I don’t know what to do. But, this answer to my question really made me realise that it is not possible that God would not allow me to live the life beyond my wildest dreams, He only wants the best for me. AND, LET’S BE CLEAR, OUR HOPE AND MY HOPE IS IN GOD, FOR I KNOW HE HAS A PLAN FOR ME TO PROSPER AND NOT TO FAIL ME. So I must say having found the answer to my question, was crucial as I was feeling rather trapped but now I’m feeling so much better and my passion is back and I feel spiritually good again. The past week I’ve learned a lot about life again and it is amazing that as sad as I feel that my life right now is in that I’m not using my time to do more and I’m fearing that my dream of doing product/industrial design is fading. This gives me hope in Christ that I have a future ahead of me beyond my wildest dreams. Now I shall go into the words in the books i.e. soul cravings and God’s Answer to Life’s Difficult Questions. But, just before that I just wanna say that the end of the past week was sort of the point where I started to feel better, and I guess two pieces of good news, one I’ll be representing S’pore in the SEA paragames if I’m not wrong and I’ve been invited to speak at Nanyang Primary sometime soon. And I must say that, the past two Sundays where I’ve started to go back for youth class has been pretty rewarding in that at least I spend more time studying God’s word and truly doing the book of Romans is amazing it’s like so much of what I hold dear to me is in this book. And, Church is definitely becoming what it really should be for me and I really can feel that I’m now worshipping with that same passion again and I thank God. Hope these signs are that I’m getting back to the time when everything was awesome…
Now then, to start, from Rick Warren’s book God’s Answers to Life’s Difficult Questions, I looked up about depression and “Why is This Happening to me”. The mistakes we make when we are depressed is that we have incorrect attitudes, we do not focus on facts not feelings, we compare ourselves with others and take false blame. We also exaggerate the negative, and I must say the last point is probably the most true to my situation, I guess complaining about doing nothing with my life and about not being able to go to uni when the acceptance period isn’t over yet. But, we are to take care of physical needs, give our frustrations to God, get fresh awareness of God’s presence and gain a new direction in life. I think really my life feels really directionless in this, so I think I need to seek the Lord to give me a new direction now that all else has failed. And, I should stop looking at myself as I will get discouraged more but to look to needs of others instead. When we are depressed often we think how can God ever use me since I’ve failed. We can never be disappointed as long as we are God Disappointment only happens when someone expects us to do something different from who u are. Let God give us new direction and purpose especially personally I feel like I’ve lost my direction in life with my dreams seemingly slipping away but I believe God has a direction for me in my life so I’m not giving up hope of my dreams just yet…
Joseph in the Bible says this “You intended to harm me but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives”. God sees everything we go thru and he cares. God has given everyone freedom of choice and so bad things happen coz God’s will is not always done but God is in ultimate control and can bring good out of bad. When we think everything in our life is falling apart God has the final say. We must not be bitter and dwell in self pity. We must never give up on God’s plan.
In all things God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose.
Romans 8: 28
God makes all things good and bad for good. God has our best interest at heart and uses bad things for the good overall purpose in our lives. We need to look at things from perspective. It may be difficult but God uses the situation in a great purposeful way. We should turn to the promise of God, the people of God and the presence of God. Turn to God with our free will and He will turn an ugly situation into good. God can bring out the best even when everything has fallen apart but turn to God and He will put the pieces back together.
Then, next as I came to the book Soul Cravings just for reading sakes I realise that it somehow was related to my situation and help me with the answer to my question also. My thought process went this was, so God gives us dreams and ambitions for a reason. But, why would give us dreams if we cannot achieve them, a fuel for life I guess? Well, God gives us some dreams to materialise and other as a fuel. If not to materialise there is a reason for God giving us dreams but depending on God’s will which is actually what is best for us.
hope, there is life. Below is a compilation of the important things mentioned in the book Soul Cravings under the section about DESTINY…in the way that it spoke to me…
If you’re presently a coward desperately trying to avoid any stress, unnecessary pressure, or unforeseen danger, you might call it a design flaw, but we humans are most alive when we passionately pursue out dreams, live with a purpose, and have a sense of destiny. We thrive when we are optimistic about the future. It seems failure is no match for the person who believes in the future. When we see failure as personal, pervasive or permanent, we become paralysed. Bottom line: we cannot live the life of our dreams without an irrational sense of destiny. All of us long to become something more than we are. We are driven to achieve, moved to accomplish, fuelled by ambition. We’re all searching for our unique purpose, our divine destiny, or simply a sense of significance or some measure of success. When we are optimistic about the future, we find energy to create it. We all desperately want to achieve something, to accomplish something; we just don’t know what. To even in the smallest of ways make a difference in someone else’s life is amazing. And, it is amazing how is it as children we imagine a life we have never known. What’s the motivation to change? You’ll never have it better. Ambition and passion is. In fact, when we’re young and less grounded in reality, we dream bigger and more ridiculous dreams. Life is about accomplishment not just survival. Progress too. Childhood curiosity was the secret to Einstein’s success.
Passion, desire, drive and ambition are what we express as we aspire and strive to achieve, to accomplish, and to attain. We have an internal need to achieve some kind of success or to somehow find significance. Pursuing the future we desire energizes and inspires us. All of us want to create a better life, a better future, a better us. Whether it’s striving for success or longing for significance, whether it’s trying to create a better world or become a better person, there is a drive within us all. You can live without pursuing a dream, you can function without passion, but with each passing moment, you soul will become more and more anemic. We humans are instinctively ambitious. When we dream, our dreams naturally gravitate toward greatness. For most of us coming in last among the best would be a farfetched dream, yet we don’t dream like this. We dream of greatness, we dream ambitiously. Whatever inspires us, we begin to dream that one day we will be the best. It is only as we lose our childlike innocence that we begin to settle for far less. It is easy to say that is part of growing up and that growing up seems to be acquiescing to mediocrity. We say it is being realistic but it is the death of our souls. Then there is the Bumblebee effect. There were many people along the way who told Randy that his dream to fly would never come to fruition due to his physical condition but he did. We would think that the quality of life of someone with a disability would be greatly reduced but that does not stop one from achieve one’s dreams.
We have been called out of the mundane into a life beyond our wildest imagination. We have a mission, a purpose, a destiny. The butterfly effect proposes that small and apparently insignificant events can set in motion a chain of events with far reaching consequences. The bumblebee effect describes how great and apparently impossible dreams can set in motion a chain of events resulting in a seemingly insignificant person living an extraordinary life. I’ve never bought into the adage” If you can dream it, you can do it.” That’s not because of a lack of imagination but because of an abundance of it. There are just so many things I can dream that I was not designed to do. We may not be able to accomplish everything we can dream but we will not accomplish anything without our dreams. That is not to say that things don’t happen beyond our wildest dreams, but that effect seems to come into play only when we are pursuing wild dreams. We often underestimate what we are capable of doing. And, the wonderful thing is that just as the bee was not designed to fly but flies, in life purpose overrides design.
What happens when your life just can’t live up to your dreams? There comes this huge sense of dissatisfaction with life. We can’t live without dreams. Dreams inspire us. Without dreams, we have nothing to pull us forward. A life in God is never absent of dreams. God designed us to dream because he created us to create. Dreams are a voice of hope. Many of us either lose our ambition, or we come to believe that ambition is a bad thing. Not only is ambition a good thing, it is also a God thing. You cannot live the life God created you to live without being ambitious. Spirit is drawn to greatness. Many of us have come to believe ambition is unhealthy but the truth is when you lose ambition you lose your future. When you lose your future, you lose hope. And no one can live well without hope. Without ambition we have no dreams worth living. When we let our dreams due, we start dying with them. We have a need for progress and to become. The future is not simply entered into, it is created. To create we must first dream, and then act. We were created to strive for progress and to pursue it with passion. Sincere people have deferred their responsibility while waiting on God to do something, but it has created a spirituality that lacks initiative and engagement. This goes against the nature of the human spirit, and it goes against the way God has created us. God created us to engage and solve problems, meet needs and do something with our lives.
God calls us out of the life we have known and calls us to a life we have never imagined. It is important to fully live each moment, but equally important to make sure that we do not live only for this moment. We have to believe in tomorrow to function well today. It will never be enough for us to simply exist, and if all we have is now, our souls will starve from lack of nourishment. Without a future there is no hope, and hope is essential for our souls to thrive. Hope exists only in the future, and if the future doesn’t exist, there is no hope. Without hope, there is only despair. You only feel sense of destiny when you are filled with hope. We all need to believe we have a future and a hope. If you don’t believe you have a future worth living for, you spirit loses all hope and your soul was not designed to live without hope. In fact, when we lose all hope, we lose all desire to live. Hope moves us from pessimism to optimism. When there is no future, there is no hope. Where there is hope, there is no reason to live. When we are full of hope, it’s not because everything in the future is certain to us, but because the future itself is filled with promise. At same time, like the promise of a future hope comes only from something we do not yet have something we have not yet attained.
It’s not enough for us to merely exist. We are compelled to achieve this drive would not exist without a concept of time. We cannot function effectively without a belief in that which does not exist you believe in tomorrow, you believe in progress. It takes faith to believe in the future. Each and every one of us has been created with a soul craving to become something - something better, something different, something special, something unique, something admired, something valued and something more than we are. We act as if we will live forever and are constantly facing the painful truth that life can end at any moment. We should “Dream as if you live forever. Live as if you’ll die today. We are all running out of time. Awareness of death can powerfully work in our favour. When we come to the end of hope, it’s our souls that turn bad. Conscious awareness of death inspires us to live a life of passionate urgency. It is only when we lose all hope that we find ourselves incapable of moving forward. Despair means to live apart from hope or to live without a future. Our souls begin to long for God without hope your life may not come to an end but it does come to a stop.
Hope is essential for life. He who has a “why” to live can bear with almost any “how”. Their resolve and resilience to endure the unimaginable came out of souls that believed their destiny could not be thwarted by their present tragedy. A sense of destiny gives us the strength to face overwhelming obstacles and hardships. At the same time, living a life with a powerful sense of purpose gives us energy and enthusiasm to get up in the morning to face the day. Strength is unleashed within us when we are convinced our lives have a purpose yet to be fulfilled, especially when we choose a purpose beyond ourselves. Even if we never achieve our dreams we are always shaped by those dreams and the higher the purpose, the stronger the person. When we have something yet to do, something still to accomplish, we have a reason to live and we fight to stay alive. The life that is most powerfully lived is the one that finds passionate urgency fuelled by a sense of destiny. We need to have a dreamt we are pursuing and at the same time experience enough of that dream to keep us inspired. It is not only essential to keep hope alive it is hope that keeps us alive. Hope is fuelled through which we create the future. There are two kind of midlife crisis, to fall short of your dreams or to have everything but yet be empty. It is about moving from success to significance. I
If there were no God, it would be insane for us to search for significance or to be ambitious for success. There is a reason for our existence, a reason to live. Without a reason to live we don’t even have a reason to get out of bed. Most of us no matter how badly we’ve messed up our lives want to create a better life for ourselves and for those we love. There was a time when we longed to make a difference. You soul was starving for hope. The best evidence that your soul craves a destiny is that when you no longer believe you were created with a purpose and for a purpose your soul is never satisfied with the life you have.
Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalms 37:4
Many people have given up on pursuing spirituality because no one ever told them that dreams, passions and ambitions were placed there by God that they were intended to be the fuel that would drive them to pursue their dreams and visions. You can spend your whole life trying to become what you soul longs for without God. You might resent him that he’s made it so hard for you to live out your dreams of to fulfil your destiny. It’s never quite hit you that it’s in the struggle in the process even in the search for God that he is making you strong enough to take flight. Everything that drives us, every effort to succeed, every attempt to be significant, every moment we pursue a dream, advance a cause or work to make the world better in any way, is an act of hope. Where there is
So yea, this is basically what the book is saying about destiny. The writer is saying that search for our destiny leads to God and that we can live the dream in Christ.
To end, that as the song's lyrics below is about flying. Truly, let God take control and prepare us to take off and achieve greatness in our lives. It is in God that we find purpose in life. So never lose hope and always keep dreaming. Trust the Lord and have joy in Him. Coz in Christ we can live the life of our dreams.
"Fly"
In a moment, everything can change,
Feel the wind on your shoulder,
For a minute, all the world can wait,
Let go of your yesterday.
Can you hear it calling?
Can you feel it in your soul?
Can you trust this longing?
And take control,
Fly
Open up the part of you that wants to hide away
You can shine,
Forget about the reasons why you can't in life,
And start to try, cause it's your time,
Time to fly.
All your worries, leave them somewhere else,
Find a dream you can follow,
Reach for something, when there's nothing left,
And the world's feeling hollow.
Can you hear it calling?
Can you feel it in your soul?
Can you trust this longing?
And take control,
Fly
Open up the part of you that wants to hide away
You can shine,
Forget about the reasons why you can't in life,
And start to try, cause it's your time,
Time to fly.
And when you're down and feel alone,
Just want to run away,
Trust yourself and don't give up,
You know you better than anyone else,
In a moment, everything can change,
Feel the wind on your shoulder,
For a minute, all the world can wait,
Let go of yesterday,
Fly
Open up the part of you that wants to hide away
You can shine,
Forget about the reasons why you can't in life,
And start to try,
Fly
Forget about the reasons why you can't in life,
And start to try, cause it's your time,
Time to fly.
In a moment, everything can change.
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