Choosing a Lifestyle
Disappointed with last year? High hopes for the new one? Start getting your strategies for living from the right source. Over the last few days of 2009, I was suddenly confronted with the fact that things often don't work out because they were never designed to work out. For example, we have the idea that we have the right to choose a lifestyle. We might look at a TV character, a sports celebrity, a music star, a media personality, a politician or even just someone else we admire, and decide that we would like to have the same kind of life he or she does.
So we begin to design our lives to follow the pattern observable in the life of our hero. We choose a similar area of educational interest, try to develop similar skills, look for a mate who fits the plan, try to find the right house in the right neighbourhood, drive the right car, and even adopt behaviour and speech patterns which mimic that person. In as many ways as we can identify, we try to align our life with that of the one we seek to be like. Without knowing it, that person shapes the decisions we make and, in a way, the person we become. With all of the attention to detail we put into this lifestyle project, you'd think it would be bound to work out.
We want to become like our heroes. In fact, to some degree we do become like our heroes, intentionally or otherwise. So looking at the lifestyle issue casually, you'd think this would work well. After all, I just admitted that to some degree it does work. The problem is that it seldom works to the degree we'd like or in the way we were hoping. Public portrayals of public people are usually carefully edited. Only the good and pleasant and acceptable aspects are exposed. The dark side, the mistakes, the socially unacceptable are kept behind closed doors. So what we think should work, and what, indeed, does work to a limited degree, is a disappointment to us.
If you want a life that is fulfilling and makes sense, you'll have to choose another option - something other than patterning your lifestyle after someone else, famous or otherwise. How about this? God says that in all our ways we should acknowledge Him and then He'll make life work, He'll direct our path, He'll straighten the way before us. (See Proverbs 3:6) Acknowledging Him means we recognize His presence in the various aspects of life. If we ignore Him, living as if He weren't present even though we know He is, we will find that our path through life becomes circuitous, a wild-goose chase, a rabbit trail that is hard to follow and leads nowhere. Yet, we have His promise that if we acknowledge Him, recognizing His presence and His influence, He'll make life work out. He'll show us how to live and give us the resources to do so.
If you want things to work out in your life, don't pattern your life after your favourite TV character, align it with God. In all of the lifestyle choices, education, career, spouse, family, home, neighbourhood and so on, seek God's way. Recognize that He has things to say about all of those, generally, if not specifically, but often specifically.
If your life isn't working out very well, take a deep breath and look for places where it doesn't follow God's pattern, where you've ignored Him and His purpose for you. If you need help with this, leave a post and someone will engage you at whatever level you care to interact.
