Somewhere in the back story of the drama that is your life, you are rehearsing a Cinderella story. One that transforms you from zero to hero, from reject to regal. You imagined it as a kid in ways that were unique to you. This dream may have been fed by caring parents, or it may have been an escape from the harshness of your world.
Simply put, you dreamed of glory.
Not vainglory, mind you. Something more. An image that said you mattered. Belonged. Were wonderfully adequate for the role you’d been chosen – for your quest.
Then came the collision. Dreams were broadsided by disappointments. You never quite figured out how to translate that high school stardom into a career or a destiny. Or worse, you actually found your place in the world, but stared in the mirror at a fraud. Maybe you got what (or who) you’d always wanted, and you bombed. Maybe you just settled into paying the bills and keeping house, and woke up a generation later wondering what happened.
Sometimes I think our greatest fear or vulnerability isn’t the evil we’re all capable of. What we most dread or most grieve is that we’re just so ordinary. [click to continue…]
God has established an ordered world based on eternal principles found in His word. I’m not talking about so-called “principles” that preachers invent to make people feel good, then try to attach a random Bible verse to in order to sound legit to the church crowd. I mean truths, grounded in His character, that apply to many different situations. That’s the difference between a rule and a principle. “Don’t commit murder” is a rule. “Value life” is a principle.
That said, to the degree that we align our lives with God’s principles, we experience the fullness of God’s purpose in creating us in the first place. And the root from which every other principle springs is that everything begins with, and culminates in, the glory of God. You and I were created for his glory – to express His image, extend His life, and execute His will. And in order to fulfill that purpose, we were given the awesome gift of one lifetime.
That’s it. No Plan B. No second chances as a toad or platypus. You get one shot, with no guarantees of how long exactly that will be. But with that one lifetime, you receive the opportunity to produce consequences affecting your future, in both time and eternity.
LifeVesting is about understanding the possibilities and taking action in the direction of the compelling future and eternal reward that can be yours. It revolves around five biblical principles. You can find them expressed in a variety of images – agriculture, business, family relationships, even fishing. But the principles are consistent, regardless of the metaphor. Today I’d like to briefly explain the first one.
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Somewhere in the back story of the drama that is your life, you are rehearsing a Cinderella story. One that transforms you from zero to hero, from reject to regal. You imagined it as a kid in ways that were unique to you. This dream may have been fed by caring parents, or it may have been an escape from the harshness of your world.