After a few posts, it starts to get a bit depressing to realize just how much I am a slave to so many things in life, especially as I realize the hold they have on me, and that they tend not to be very God pleasing at all. But, in a sense, I'm also a slave to my sense of holding to the course, so to finish the week out, here's another area of life where I find myself a slave.
I am a slave to getting what I want. Now, that doesn't sound so bad on the surface. In fact, that's an idea that is drilled into our heads from the time we are young. "You can be whatever you want." "If you want something, work hard and it can become yours." And so the drive to get or to become whatever you want can become a very powerful motivating force in a person's life. But is that necessarily a good thing?
When I got married, I faced quite a dilemma. I had quite a few things that I had been doing in a particular way for a while, and now they had to change. I had to take another person and their desires into account. I couldn't always get what I wanted. I would go to the movies whenever I wanted, to see whatever show captured my fancy. When I got married, not only did I have to work with another person who didn't exactly share my same interests in movies, but also had a very different view of movie watching than I did!
I'm a slave to wanting to do things that I want to do. The thing is, one of the correctives that God puts in place in our lives is that we live among other people. We cannot simply go forth to get our way, especially as we live in relationship with others. And that is actually a very good thing. God teaches us that our lives are not our own, despite what our American upbringing may declare. While God often grants us the freedom to choose things like career, occupation, and spouse, He doesn't leave us as slaves to our desires and whims. We simply have to take others into account.
Yet, I find myself rebelling against that from time to time. Sure, most of the time I see the value and wisdom of my wife and my daughter, and in what they call for from me. But there are times where I just want to do what I want to do. And when it doesn't happen, I realize my slavery to such things as I become surly. I pout. I try to find a way to do what I want, hoping that it won't interfer with what others want. But at heart, I realize that I am a slave. I want to do what I want to do.
I am a slave to getting what I want. Now, that doesn't sound so bad on the surface. In fact, that's an idea that is drilled into our heads from the time we are young. "You can be whatever you want." "If you want something, work hard and it can become yours." And so the drive to get or to become whatever you want can become a very powerful motivating force in a person's life. But is that necessarily a good thing?
When I got married, I faced quite a dilemma. I had quite a few things that I had been doing in a particular way for a while, and now they had to change. I had to take another person and their desires into account. I couldn't always get what I wanted. I would go to the movies whenever I wanted, to see whatever show captured my fancy. When I got married, not only did I have to work with another person who didn't exactly share my same interests in movies, but also had a very different view of movie watching than I did!
I'm a slave to wanting to do things that I want to do. The thing is, one of the correctives that God puts in place in our lives is that we live among other people. We cannot simply go forth to get our way, especially as we live in relationship with others. And that is actually a very good thing. God teaches us that our lives are not our own, despite what our American upbringing may declare. While God often grants us the freedom to choose things like career, occupation, and spouse, He doesn't leave us as slaves to our desires and whims. We simply have to take others into account.
Yet, I find myself rebelling against that from time to time. Sure, most of the time I see the value and wisdom of my wife and my daughter, and in what they call for from me. But there are times where I just want to do what I want to do. And when it doesn't happen, I realize my slavery to such things as I become surly. I pout. I try to find a way to do what I want, hoping that it won't interfer with what others want. But at heart, I realize that I am a slave. I want to do what I want to do.
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