Recently, it seems I have run into several people around me, who feel they have lost a reason for living. I hope this letter, is more than just a letter, but a stirring in your heart to know that when your strength fails, there is a greater hope in which all people can turn to, to find hope.
"I find myself always looking to be inspired, to feel something, to actually have something better to say to people than just, "I'm ok". To actually say that my life was lived and I did something with it, that I actually inspired people, that I helped people grow into the butterfly that flutters outside their window, that I am someone worth mentioning, and not worth mentioning at all.
That my life was worth living.
I know we all say that ambition is important, but more important than ambition is what that ambition is. One would say Martin Luther King Jr. was very ambitious, a charismatic visionary, a man who would not yield to the predominant public opinion that blacks (or any other race) were inferior to someone born with pale skin. We would also say that Adolf Hitler was also very ambitious, a charismatic visionary, a man who would not yield to the predominant public opinion that germans were inferior to someone born in another wealthier country. Hitler's ambition was to prove that the Aryan race was greater than all of mankind. MLK's ambition was to prove that all races were equal under God.
I look in my heart and around me and I see us, our young generation, where so many are of us are still lost in our ambitions. Too afraid to look into the mirror that even when we do look, we keep one eye closed. Driven by our fears, blinded by our goals and "how to" lifestyle, so enamored with the thought of being on top of that ladder that that ladder has become the most important thing in our lives. Confused and broken, we've forgotten that life is more important than money, the body more important than clothes. No one says they live for wealth, but 98% of the American country live as if it is. We need money, but what is the ambition driving us? Why do so many people in this country hate their job? Or their boss? Wish they had a raise in pay? Why do so many people, given more money, continue to desire more? Is it so hard to see that we are so easily driven by our fears, or our desire for pleasure? And to what end? Our fear of being poor, our fear of looking bad in front of our friends, the pleasure of being rich, the pleasure of looking good in front of our friends... Holding onto something that speaks nothing of truth or love, our climbing has stripped us of our very essence because we are no longer ourselves. We have become our pleasures, we have become a product of our fears.
I have a dream too. I have a dream that one day I will live a life that is filled with good fruit, with love and compassion, understanding and wisdom, that though the worries of this life have laid a heavy burden on our shoulders, that it will not lay it's grip on our throats and choke our every breathe. And I know this worry, and I know you know it too. We've seen multi-billionaires jump off 30 story buildings after their company went bankrupt, and 60 year old farmers who gave 99% of their money away (over a million dollars) to start a ministry for troubled kids who felt just like we do now; afraid. So where is the heart of this country? Where is our soul?
I use-to sit high atop my horse living every day as if I was immortal, following every desire and pleasure that was in my heart, making my own rules, searching only for the next high... and for 5 years I lived in an ocean of fear and pleasure... only to find that the sparkling blue ocean I had sailed my ship on was an unforgiving desert... and the water I was drinking was grains of sand, seeping through my fingers...
So where will I go now in this place? Will I die here just as I lay? Or will I seek out the truth and beauty that is in my life? I see only one set of footprints in the sand now.. Carry me through oh God, carry me through..."
"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him." -John 3:17
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