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Are We Chasing
Trivial Pursuits?
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by Sam Williamson
I need to change my life for the better.
Like working on healthier thinking, or a more
gracious attitude, or better diet and exercise.
(My family could easily name a dozen more needed
changes.) My problem is that when I try my
hardest, I seem to lose more ground than I gain.
Nine years ago, my friend Gary Barkalow asked me
if I make New Year’s resolutions. I shared my
decades of failures. Gary shared his. Neither of
us had made a single resolution for years.
At the same time, we both liked the idea of
improving some facet of life, leaving behind some
ill-formed character trait and facing the future
without its baggage. Anything to trigger that
transition is great. Unfortunately, New Year’s
resolutions never lit those fireworks in our
lives.
Neither of us could ever remember a single time a
resolution significantly changed our lives.
Gary suggested we find a positive pursuit that
would transform us not just restrain us.
We challenged each other to come up with a “Transcendent
Pursuit” for the year 2011. It wouldn’t be a
self-discipline; instead of curbing a “bad” we
would invest in a “good.”
I chose to invest in two of my favorite words: reflect
and express. The result was that year I
published forty-two articles in fifty-two weeks.
Before that year, I had published eighteen in the
previous seventy-five weeks. It was the
beginning of Beliefs of the Heart.
Notice What I
Didn’t Do
I know there are discipline junkies out there who
thrive in the willpower-world of New Year’s
resolutions. But for the other seven and a half
billion people on this earth, I want to suggest an
empowering life-transformation instead of yet one
more life-draining form of restraint.
Instead of devotion to discipline, let’s pursue a
God-given curiosity. The first tries to shore-up a
weakness, while the second personally engages us
with God in a positive spiritual desire.
Ten years ago, I wanted to publish more articles
more often. But the more I tried self-restraint,
the more I failed. Notice that my Transcendent
Pursuit never mentioned writing or regularity.
Instead it encouraged me to spend my time in what
God was stirring in my heart.
I devoted myself to a God-inspired curiosity and
expression. The gift not the chore.
What Most Stirs Our Hearts?
In The Mind of The Maker, Dorothy Sayers
said it like this:
When a job is undertaken from
necessity, the worker is self-consciously aware
of the toils and pains. But when the job is a
labor of love, the sacrifices will present
themselves to the worker—strange as it may
seem—in the guise of enjoyment.
Moralists will always judge that the sacrifice
is more admirable than the joy, because the
moralist (whatever he may pretend) has far more
respect for pride than for love. I do not mean
that there is no nobility in doing unpleasant
things from a sense of duty, but only that there
is more nobility in doing them gladly out of
sheer love of the job. (slightly edited)
I don’t mean self-restraint is bad (and my family
knows I need much more). Rather, the best way to
let go of a bad habit is to embrace a positive
pursuit that transforms us. So:
- What curiosity or spiritual love has God
been stirring in your heart?
- What is the one spiritual truth you’d love
to understand more deeply?
- What spiritual “season” has God put you in,
and how can you cooperate more fully?
When I chose to embrace “reflect and express,” I
found myself captivated by phrases I overheard in
a coffee shop, passages that gripped my mind
during prayer time, and stirring truths like hope
and anxiety. The more I reflected on them in
prayer, the more I expressed all I heard from God;
without even trying.
Since that time, I’ve chosen a new Transcendent
Pursuit every year. I’d like you to join me.
By the middle of February, most of us have already
abandoned our resolutions for this year. It’s not
too late to take a couple days and join together
in engaging in a Transcendent Pursuit.
Let’s leave behind our Trivial Pursuits and seek
the nobility of doing something “gladly out of
sheer love of the job.”
Sam
Sam Williamson has published
numerous articles and has written two books.
He has a blog site, www.beliefsoftheheart.com,
and can be reached at
Sam@BeliefsoftheHeart.com.
Hearing
God in Conversation: How to Recognize
His Voice Everywhere, by Samuel C.
Williamson, published by Kregel
Publications, 2016, available from Amazon
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