Life was meant to be lived. I don't think when God created everything and said that it was good, He thought "Yes, it's good. And someday my children will work away their lives for someone else, get caught up in the drudgery of everyday life. Ignore their families to get ahead - all in the name of providing for that same family. Yes. That will be good. My children will have fancy houses and cars. They will buy things to impress their neighbors. They will hide the reality of their hearts deep in their closets and put on a smile and try to do "good" things, but they will be empty inside. Always wanting more. Always yearning for something else, something different. Something greater. Yep, It's all good."
No, I really don't think that's what God had in mind for us at all.
There's something that's been bothering me a lot lately. Maybe it's because I'm so much closer to a church community than before. Maybe it's because I have the same issue, but I didn't realize that we all have the same issue. Maybe I just never cared before. But there is something going on. There is a revolution just waiting to break free. The body of Christ is restless and is tired of waiting around, tired of wishing someone would tell it what to do. We're ready to move.
I read books and Facebook, Pinterst, and emails. I do online studies and live studies. I talk to people both "churched" and "unchurched" and we all say the same thing: "There has to be more!" "Is this all my life is supposed to be?" "I'm bored - I'm unfulfilled - I'm just not happy"
It's all there.
All the signs of something under the surface just waiting to break free.
I think that's where Greater comes in - and other books like it. We can become so focused on just getting through each day, each week, each bill, that we lose sight of what our lives are really supposed to be. We forget the dreams we had as a child. We get up, go to work, come home, go to bed and then start over again in the morning. We allow the joy to be sucked from our lives. I'm not saying we don't have happy moments, we may even think everything is fine. But somewhere in the back of our minds, there's this thought, "Is this all there is? Is this what I'm supposed to be doing? What if I gave it all up and ______?" You can fill in the blank with whatever that thing is that you've always thought you might like to do, but just never got around to doing. And I know you have something to go in the blank, we all do.
The other side of that is that our dreams and desires for what our lives are "supposed" to be can be so big and grandiose that there is no way possible of achieving them, so we simply do nothing. My favorite quote (so far) from this book is "Most believers aren't in imminent danger of ruining their lives. Their facing a danger that's far greater: wasting them." This speaks to every facet of my life. My diet, my exercise routine, my giving, my volunteering, my career, my family.
I think so often we just settle for what our lives have become and we forget that maybe we can't do much as just one person, but our planet is made up of literally billions of "just one persons."
To me, Greater looks like this: Everyone being just one person together.
How many times have you wanted to do something, made an off-hand comment that was overheard by someone else that wanted to do the exact same thing, and before you know it, your whole outlook has changed because now you're going to do whatever it was that you wanted to do? Now you've got focus and direction because someone else is involved and you're not just responsible for yourself, you're responsible for someone else.
