It is so easy to get distracted from what really matters in life, isn’t it?
It is really quite simple to lose site of the one thing that matters and to drift towards the concerns of the world. For example, the culture in which we live offers us so many lenses in which to view our social status through. We can look at life through the lenses which judge our worth by how much (moola wise) we’re worth, or the fashion lenses (no not sunglasses) which, when looking through, we must compare ourselves to see if we have the latest and greatest “threads” on the street. There are the lenses which tell us we have to look like we have it all together, at all times, and anything less than this is far less than appropriate, acceptable or okay. Thousands of voices screaming at us daily saying “meet this standard,” “look like this model,” “act like this celebrity,” “buy this and oh yes, I promise you’ll be happier,”… Yeah, you know those sound familiar. And let’s be honest for a moment, we’ve all given in to these voices at some point, to some degree, maybe not one of the four examples I gave, but I know, and am willing to bet, at some point throughout your (who knows how many) years on life, you have given in to the tempting voice of our culture to satiate that desire to “fit.”
Please don’t think for a moment that I am speaking down to you. Trust me, I have done, and still do, and unfortunately (as I am human) will continue to fall for these stupid temptations over, and over again. I have tried the money game, the fame game, the clothing game, the sporting game, the popular game, and I have sucked at everyone of them, I have lost them all, not even been close to the king of any of them… BUT, I did learn one thing, they are all futile, they are all useless, they lead to nothing but complete emptiness.
The more I have attempted to view myself through the eyes of the world, the more I have come to a realization of one thing, which is, it leads to nothing. I need to view myself through the lens of the cross.
A professor at my school spoke in chapel last week about how everything we do must be centred on the cross. For chapel, he placed a cross directly in front of himself, at the front of the stage. It was a little uncharacteristic of an Ambrose chapel speaker to have a cross directly in front of him, in fact, to be honest it was a little intrusive to his personal space, but isn’t that just the point? That the cross should be at the very forefront of our minds so that no matter what we do, we say, or anything we see, the cross should be at the very front of that, before that? (I unfortunately due to feeling ill wasn’t at the chapel, so all of that was relayed to me by friends who were there)
When we look at ourselves we must see ourselves through the eyes of Christ, the eyes of the man who gave His very life to forgive us, to be in relationship with us, to have us follow Him. We have got to! When we try to judge our value, we must use the cross as the weigh scale, in that if it doesn’t line up, hold to, and work with the cross, it’s not worth having in our lives. If what we’re focusing on isn’t focused (in some way or another) the message of the cross, I sometimes wonder is it truly worth out time? I’m not saying everything else is bad, far from it, "for physical training is of some value", what I’m trying to say is that we must remember that our number one priority has absolutely got to be the cross. If other things are hindering the cross from being our central focus, if other things are blocking our eyes view on the cross, if things are in the way at all, they have got to be dealt with.
First and foremost, above all else lies the message of the cross. When we look at ourselves we have got to see the body that Christ died on the cross to save, when we look at friends, when we look at enemies, when we do our homework, when we work, when we play, when we lay down to go to sleep, we must keep at the forefront of our minds the cross.
-kyle.trigg