Why your foundations are broken
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Are you living an illusion? Endlessly chasing after things you think will give you what they can’t.
Endlessly chasing after things you thought would satisfy you only to find a new problem pop up that you didn’t expect. Back to square 1.. Uncertain, anxious, depressed.
You think a career will bring you fulfilment then realise how corrupt and political your field is and how it was nothing like what you expect. You think maybe kids or a family will fix things but you then find yourself more anxious, more drained than ever.
Maybe holidays will do it so you can escape. Then your travel plans get cancelled or you get sick on your break.
Maybe fitness will do it or looking after your body but then you receive some freak injury or sickness you didn’t expect.
You think maybe politicians or the media will look after you and guide you to the light. Then you realise so many of them are dishonest and driven by greed and different agendas.
Where does this end? Nothing ends up as good as you thought. Your whole life you feed yourself lies. Meanwhile you are stuck in a cycle of working and sleeping too busy to ask any deeper questions. I mean, after all, why ask deeper questions if the material world is all there is? You’re simply a bag of meat driven by chemical processes in a world without God.
You then say well as long as I can feel better than others that’s the main thing. You then lie to talk yourself up, steal to get richer, cheat to get more pleasure. You live a contradiction while pretending to live on the moral high ground in other instances. Your pride makes your wellbeing rot away and is snapped in half once others start playing the same tricks on you that you tried to play on them in order to bring you down.
Maybe true friends will do it. They often feel so selfish and superficial though and when they don’t they move away or sometimes even die young or get sick.
This might sound a bit extreme but I’m sure you can relate to at least some of it and what is to stop more of it happening to you in your life?
Surely there is something more? Your foundations are broken. Your entire life is focused on the wrong things. It’s no surprise in our materially prosperous world depression and suicide are at such high rates. We live delusions. How are our foundations broken?
Here are 4 ways
- We focus on what we can’t control over what we can: the weather, someone else’s actions, a political agenda, the economic conditions, you staying accident free while driving. There is so much you can’t control yet these things you can’t control drive so much of what happens to you. Can you impact how you react? Sure but this an issue of the mind not of external success or circumstances. By continuously focusing on what you can’t control over what you can you are effectively setting yourself up for shock or disappointment.Wisdom is greater than riches. In Proverbs 8:10–11, wisdom depicted as a woman cries aloud, “Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you desire cannot compare with her.”
- You forget death the great equaliser: we all die. Doesn’t matter your background, your physical traits, your mental abilities, your character, your wealth. It all ends the same in terms of life on this earth. On a large enough scale of comparison your time here on earth is practically zero. The same as all the famous and rich people. Don’t cling to what is impermanent as if it is permanent. As Jesus says in Matthew 6:20 store up for yourselves riches in heaven rather than earth where things rot and are stolen.
- You live a contradiction- a chemical meat bag that seeks a transcendent purpose. We like setting goals, we like looking for purpose and meaning, we like using logic. Yet.. we are also told we live in a planet that came about by chance, there is no objective moral values, we are mere animals here to propagate our DNA. We tell ourselves we seek to live by truth and morals yet cave in to the slightest pressure in order to keep our jobs. We tell ourselves health matters yet trash our bodies with unhealthy chemicals, don’t discipline ourselves to sleep, exercise or eat healthy. An internally inconsistent life will run into trouble soon enough. Jesus pointed out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees in Matthew 11:40 likening them to a dish which is clean on the outside and filthy on the inside. Are you living a contradiction?
- A filthy rag cannot clean itself: You are broken you are sinful. A rag full of mud cannot clean itself without help from elsewhere. Looking to your broken self alone to fix yourself will lead to broken results. Is this to say we cannot make progress by thinking? Absolutely not. For we can and our minds are given to us to help with this. We did not make them and we cannot save ourselves. Jesus came to seek and save the lost as mentioned in Luke 19:10 and Isaiah 64:6 reminds us we have righteousness as filthy rags.
Your foundations are broken.. Have a think about it. Life is much more frail than you think. Regain this true perspective and focus on building a foundation on what does matter. As Jesus warns us in Matthew 7, building a house on the sand will have devastating circumstances when the storm comes. Don’t get too caught up in the rat race or the daily grind that you forget the bigger picture- you are a speck of dust on the earth in a fleeting moment in time. You won’t find all the meaning you need in yourself… after all was your brain and body something you put together on your own?
