Monday, December 13, 2004

Vigilance

Formidable. The urgency of action is the heart of life. A person who does what is best with diligence and passion will be most formidable. No circumstance in life should bring that one down. How can I be such a person? How can I throw off everything that hinders me? How can I live my life to the fullest extent possible? I don't know what I'm doing most of the time. Sometimes I know what I ought to do, but instead, because I am lazy or easily influenced or too selfish, I do something else. I do that which has no value in society, because it suits me or because I feel like it. Is my life so meaningless? Is it so worthless, that I would waste it that way? Could I not be benefiting the world somehow? I fear I know the answers to these questions all too well. But I cannot find the power or the strength of will to take heed of them. So what does it take? How can I be someone that is so different from how I am. A change of habits takes so much time. People learn to quit smoking, but after ten years they may take one puff, and once again they cannnot stop. I don't think life is fair in that respect. Good things take constant vigilance, unending and difficult, while worthless things are addictive and take little effort of will at all. It's like there's an evil force in the world that will rise up to oppose every act of goodness, always at war. Why do I always forget? It is exactly so, not just like. We are at war - at war with the evil in the world, with the principalities and powers which rule this dark world. Every good thing comes from God. They will try to stop each and every one of them if they can, for they hate all good things and they hate God the more. I cannot let down my guard, nor let slacken my watch. I must live upright and true to the calling I have. I only wish we did not always have to fight. I wish goodness were easy. I wish evil were not tempting. How tremendously terrible, that we have been placed in a world such as this! Now I must sleep. If I want to hate what is evil and cling to what is good tomorrow, I must get sleep, so I can be vigilant. Lord, help me to be vigilant.