GETTING GROUNDED IN SOMETHING BIGGER THAN YOU
One thing we are extremely lucky to have in America is the freedom to worship whatever god or follow whatever religion we want. Go to a library or bookstore and you will find a plethora of books on all kinds of spirituality. Almost anywhere you live, you will find places of worship for all kinds of religions. However, in an age of all information at our fingertips, it can be really hard knowing what is actually true. Isn’t it normal to feel in our bones that there is more to this world then what meets the eye? And when you really think about it, like, think hard, it’s hard to know where to start.
However, if you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything. This means that if you are a person who lives moment to moment, without thinking bigger and broader, you will be like chaff in the wind… aka you will follow the crowd wherever it goes. It’s easy to wonder, how is it that something like the holocaust happened? Sure, there are evil people in the world that get sick, twisted pleasure off of evil, but the entire country of Germany saw Jews being mistreated and abused. Why did an entire country allow that to happen? Again, if you stand for nothing, you will never rise to the occasion and speak out against evils, even through danger, even when the crowds shout otherwise. There is more to this world then meets the eye. There are many hot topic, spiritual words I could talk about: meditation, yoga, mindfulness, etc.
However… instead of clearing your mind for meditation, we want to encourage you to think (and maybe even write). Write a list of the top three attributes that you think are the most important: courage, kindness, goodness, loyalty, understanding, etc. Now, write at least three questions that you don’t know the answer to: is there a Creator? Where did we come from? Why is there injustice? Last, reflect on a few evils in human history: the holocaust, slavery, or the gulags during the Soviet Union and jot down what kind of response you think you may have had during these atrocities.
The thing is… if you never think about the bigger picture, you may find yourself to be a person of very surfacy values. When life is good, that may be fine; but, there are times in your life when you will need something bigger to hold onto and believe in. I wrote this quote all over my notebooks, hands, and room in high school: “We’re all just trees in a story about a forest” (Donald Miller). You are one note in a long, and beautiful symphony. This story is about so much more than you. It’s worth it to try and figure what it’s all about.