- For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear. -
What happens when you have multiple dreams?
When we are born, we have something that immediately begins to deplete as we age.
Potential.
In that time, we are malleable. We can learn almost any language (even multiple), practice any sport without criticism, and try anything readily available to us.
Our parents check in with a simple question. “What do you want to be?”
Some of us know. We are princesses, policemen, firefighters, astronauts, and nurses. We can make all the sounds and gestures that go with that career.
No matter how absurdly we describe our future, our parents smile, confirming playfully our imaginations.
We can be anything (reasonably). This is the moment to invite God into your life; to try and get a vision of His future.
But, there is a lie we tell ourselves as we grow up. We don’t just want the career. We want the car, the house, the kids, the guitar, and the etc.
We want it all.
With our indomitable will, all the areas of life worth having will be ours. With a meticulous adherence to our schedule and everything moving perfectly according to it, nothing stands in our way.
Describing the various things we wish, want, and strive for is a simple process. It’s an obsession, and like every obsession, the addict can speak of its pleasures at length.
What are we describing? A life with all the trappings, comforts, and successes that we can manage. How could that be wrong?
What matters at a funeral? The gilded coffin, or the words spoken?
Do your vacations to over a hundred countries matter? How in the world could your memory of a place and time, both victims of entropy, be worth anything?
Yes, it’s a bit dismissive. That’s the power and crutch of the argument of vanity. It might seem trite saying a length of time makes everything meaningless, but it doesn’t make it less true.
What is better is to have faith that the actions you make have an impact. That means they can make an impression in eternity.
That’s a dangerous statement to make, because it’s either one of incredible hubris (pride) or faith. The former is sin and the latter is foolishness (by the world’s standards).
How can you battle both of these rebukes as a Christian?
Faith is an argument not from reason, though it can be assisted by it. Faith is an argument brought forth by the universe demanding a response.
To see a creator’s hand and a moral law requires something indecipherable (yet implicitly understood) to sit outside the universe and structure.
Pride? Now that’s a trick as well. You must know that to think you can change something is to claim your filthy rags can clean.
Can you deny that only God can save? That only He can redeem? That what is and what can be are both His to give or refuse?
Than to live a life that leaves dents is to give that life to His purposes. It is to know your direction and impetus best serve you, man, and God when they are given to Him freely.
Fear God and watch His visions reign.
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