December 11
December 11
Scrooge is driven by a fear of poverty. The choices he makes, the breaking of an engagement, the pursuit of a particular career seems to indicate that he is fearful that he will be in want. Continuing his conversation with Belle, the fiancé who is breaking their engagement, he responds:
"This is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he said. "There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!"
"You fear the world too much," she answered, gently. "All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?"
To “know thyself” is to know what drives us. Why we make the decisions we make. To be aware that if we are fear driven it will erode at our ability to take risks to pursue those things that are most meaningful in life.
"Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed. When it was made, you were another man."
The fear driven Scrooge changed from being the one that Belle loved to the one she no longer wanted to live life with. Each of our decisions cost us something. Some of our decisions, as noble as they may be; will erode at what is important in life; relationship.
This time of year, there may be a reminder of the cost of our past pursuits. How relationships have been sacrificed. Let this time not be merely a time to remember the cost, but to make positive choices in pursuit of establishing stronger relationships with God and others. Let the joy of this season
cause us all to put an emphasis on relationships.
Scrooge is driven by a fear of poverty. The choices he makes, the breaking of an engagement, the pursuit of a particular career seems to indicate that he is fearful that he will be in want. Continuing his conversation with Belle, the fiancé who is breaking their engagement, he responds:
"This is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he said. "There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!"
"You fear the world too much," she answered, gently. "All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?"
To “know thyself” is to know what drives us. Why we make the decisions we make. To be aware that if we are fear driven it will erode at our ability to take risks to pursue those things that are most meaningful in life.
"Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed. When it was made, you were another man."
The fear driven Scrooge changed from being the one that Belle loved to the one she no longer wanted to live life with. Each of our decisions cost us something. Some of our decisions, as noble as they may be; will erode at what is important in life; relationship.
This time of year, there may be a reminder of the cost of our past pursuits. How relationships have been sacrificed. Let this time not be merely a time to remember the cost, but to make positive choices in pursuit of establishing stronger relationships with God and others. Let the joy of this season
cause us all to put an emphasis on relationships.
posted by Pastor Stan | 4:57 PM
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