Just a few thoughts as I'm preparing my message for Sunday...
When we talk about our orientation in life we are talking about our integrated set of ideas and beliefs.
When we talk about re-orientation, we are talking about doing something that is very difficult.
We are talking about stepping out of ourselves, examining our ideas and beliefs which guide and ground our lives, and making fundamental changes. To literally say- "This idea, this belief, this conviction which has guided me, perhaps for a life time, perhaps in very powerful ways, needs changed, or even removed. It is wrong, it is misleading, it is even a lie, in opposition to the truth."
Misguided and misleading orientations need removed and replaced. But the truth is we all need to be engaged in this process as a spiritual discipline. I need to re-orient my life around God, and all that is true.
For example. Perhaps your whole life has been oriented around the conviction that a good education leads to a good job which leads to good money which leads to comfort which removes stress and worry, which leads to happiness, and leads to retirement, which leads to a condo in Arizona, which leads to ultimate joy, which leads to death. None of that is necessarily wrong or misleading.
But what if on that path you get a great education, but your education is void of a moral framework. SO you take a job that pays you vast amounts of money. But in that work, since you are guided simply but the highest return, you legitimize all sorts of lying, cheating, and basically stepping on or over other people. You need to re-orient your life.
Or say along that line you discover more money actually leads to more stress, because just following the stats, you are becoming one of those unhappy, medicated and messed up successful people. You need to re-orient your life.
Reorienting our lives to point us toward God is not always easy, and is often difficult. But it is always best, and ultimately leads to the best way of living. Re-orienting our lives toward God gets our nose up and out of the daily grind, and points us towards a better horizon.
Is your live oriented towards God? Are you on course? Or are you deep in uncharted territory?
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