I love to work. I’m blessed to be able to do something that I like, but this means I must be very disciplined as well. If God didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be a reason for me to care about anything and I genuinely cannot imagine any meaningful pursuit. However, God is real, and so there is a reason for me to do my best in every aspect of this life, to prepare for the next.
How do I describe it? It’s like I really love my life, but every day I’m forcing myself to do certain things that are uncomfortable. Doing things like enforcing working hours, setting aside time for working out and bible study mean that I am removing or limiting other things that I enjoy. I think the only way for people to really enjoy forcing themselves to do something that is difficult, is because they are on a journey, and there must be some strong hope and something they wish for. Just take migrant workers for example, I don’t think they enjoy being separated from their families. I don’t think they enjoy the harsh working conditions, but yet they are able to pull through every working day, sometimes seeming as though they enjoy it. That is because they are on a journey, and this part of it involves sacrifice to support the people they love. And there is hope of a better future; that is what gives them strength to take every new day on. This is the Christian concept of rejoicing in the Lord always, being happy through struggle because this struggle isn’t without purpose.
In case you didn’t know, I'm a very serious Christian and bible study is very important to me.
In this article, I'm just going to briefly explain why.
I take my career pretty seriously, and since it’s a really unconventional one, I will work really hard for it. Especially since I'm not talented, there’s really no easy way to get where I want. However, I am very passionate and definitely willing to put in effort to build something sustainable for myself in the long term since that also allows me the time and space to serve God and for my loved ones.
But at the end of the day, everything I'm working to achieve in this life, is temporary. It's tough to accept, but every good thing you’ve experienced and are currently experiencing right now will have to come to an end and sometimes it might feel sad. But that’s the reality and beauty of this life, right? Everything is temporary and that’s why it’s precious; that’s what gives it value.
There's a verse that comes to mind which is one of my favorite verses; Ecc 12:7 “Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, And the spirit will return to God who gave it.”.
And so ultimately even if my career exceeds my expectations, it’s also temporary, and after I’m dead, it won’t matter to me anymore. If it lives on for a few thousand years, I’ll be dead so I can’t know or care about it. And it’s not just my career, it’s everything else I care about right now too. They’re all temporary.
So, this is why I take Christianity so seriously. When you’re looking for permanence; permanence that has value, eternal happiness, if it exists, it must only exist after death. I'm going to do more research on other religions very soon, but I've already briefly looked at the beliefs and basic concepts of most of the popular religions around the world. Based on many evidences and factors, I have decided that I believe in the God of the bible. Yes, I was raised a Christian, but I don't think that really affected my objectivity too much, because for a long time I tried to disprove the bible and doubt God. But that didn’t really work too well for me.
In this life, it’s really easy to get caught up in random things and having a little too much fun. According to the bible, if I want to get to heaven after I die, there are still some things I have to do on earth. I can't just do nothing, I have to keep God’s law.
So, daily bible study is important, but not just to understand what God’s law is, I think that’s actually pretty straightforward and intuitive.
Here’s a Versutus’ quote: “many times we let the means of reaching our goal become the goal, and that is when we lose”.
I believe I said this thinking about chess and how we should always remember that the objective is checkmate, and the means to get there like material and positional advantages are, although important, secondary.
But it’s the same with life, and I feel like if I get into the habit of remembering my objective in life every day, by studying the bible, it will be really good for me spiritually.
If bible study isn’t already a part of our daily routine, I would encourage all of us to proactively sacrifice something else we like doing, for 15 minutes or so a day, to open the bible and understand just something from it, to remind ourselves what we’re doing on this earth.