IN PURSUIT OF SOMETHING DEEPER

Hello there! 

How are you doing this fine day?

It's our first Guest feature on the blog! And my best friend has penned down a very insightful piece, I pray it touches you as it's touched me. 

So, welcome to the gist....

Life does not give you what you want. Very often, it takes away that which you already have and puts you through the blender. It holds you against the flame to test your mettle, and very many of us fail.

Failing this trial by fire is no shame, but in all these, we would hope we at least failed gracefully; that we would fail without losing our certain inherent dignity as humans and walk away with the realization that while imperfect, we are always on the pursuit of something greater, that we took our hard knocks with a humility that was befitting of our station, understanding that on this journey we are nothing more than ore, meant to be refined or cast away, walking gradually on a tortuous path, to greatness or to doom, each person finding purpose in the hardships that shape them.

On this journey of self-exploration, of growth and of trial, you never quite know when you are at the mountaintop. In fact, it would be a mistake to ever consider yourself refined, as close to the finished product as possible. Once you assume this, you have lost your way.

This very important, life-changing journey that you are undertaking, life is not gonna hold back, you have to roll with the punches. You have to slowly raise yourself out of the mire and overcome the chaos of life.

In a nutshell, that is what we all seem to be searching for: that purpose or meaning to something deeper than what we currently have.

The key, however, is not to focus inward at yourself but to look outward, upward into the heavens, and draw from a fountain much deeper than yours.

Today’s world would like you to believe that the answer is in wealth, that it’s in friends and it’s in popularity, that it’s in clout and it’s in immorality.

Remember, though, that purposeful men and women existed way before these things became supercharged to the extent they are today.

However, I empathize with young people. As an old young person, I empathize with the expression that modern life has modern problems.

With modern freedoms, come modern prisons.

Yokes to which we have become attached to and cannot, and, for some, do not want to overcome. When you decide to only do the things that you feel like doing, when you follow every whim and whimsy that you feel, when you follow every feeling, you become a prisoner to all the things that were supposed to bring you freedom. The things that were supposed to leave you unburdened become the source of your yoke.

In the pursuit of something deeper, bigger than ourselves, some have put on the yoke of pornography, of drunkenness, of fear, of social addiction, of alcoholism, of drug abuse, and of violence. Some have given up entirely and walk a path of hedonism, giving into every pleasure they feel the inclination to pursue.

Modern worlds call for modern vices.

In the pursuit of something deeper or in avoidance of it, sometimes we embrace these vices. We’ve gone to bed with them, cuddled them, and birthed more of them to make matters worse.

It’s impossible to find any sort of meaning or purpose in all of these. It’s also hard to find any form of direction if all you’ve ever known is something as directionless as today’s modern world.

But there’s more.

Surely there’s more.

There’s a source of meaning that is deeper than what the world offers.

There is a source of meaning deeper than nihilism.

It’s a living and eternal purpose, a commission greater than our modern prisons and vices.

If you are curious on how to begin your journey to finding this purpose…

Pick up your Bible, and you are already on the right track!

Thank you for reading and I hope you learned a thing, or ten; thank you so much Boki for being my first guest.

See you next week!

Love,

Achenyo.