What is shaping our life II? ...

Saturday, June 4, 2011. What is shaping your life? How are we filling our days and what does it do with us?

Family, friends, literature, films …

We spend a significant amount of time with family and friends. When we are kids, we spend time with our parents, with brothers and sisters. When we are young adults, this shifts to friends and fellow students, usually. In what way is our life influenced by our family? Is it good or is it rather creating difficulties? Human interaction can carry a whole range of problems … and it is good to address them and try to solve them. On which basis can we find a solution?

We read books, we read magazines, we watch films in TV or in the cinema around the corner. We spend time with the ideas of reporters and authors. We follow the emotional lines of a romance, or the heavy fight in some action movie. All this shapes our days and our life! We can treat this actively, or be passively shaped by our environment.

In the bible there are various passages that deal with the daily shaping of our life. The basic idea is to be shaped by God through his word, through the bible and what people speak in the name of the eternal God. Jesus and the apostles knew very well that we are shaped by all the contacts and interaction we have every day. So they told us to be shaped by God, to go to him and listen every day.

Silence with him …

Reading the bible, studying the passages, working with and on it, talking about it, listening to people who are able to explain … all this is part of the process through which God wants to shape us. When we fall in love with God, we want to hear more from him day by day …

Silence with God can be a good starting point. Silence with God can start with just some minutes where we focus on him, where we pray to him, where we try to listen and become aware of his viewpoint in our current situation. When we know the biblical viewpoint well, then silence with God is well grounded, since then we can distinguish between his voice and the various ideas which sweep through our mind.

When we search him, search the silence with him, we are on a good way to be shaped by him. He does not want to shout into our busy day. He does this sometimes by various circumstances, by putting things in our way. But he rather wants to talk to us in silence. He wants to shape us by our own will, who dedicates himself to him, to the eternal one. He wants us to come and ask him … and be shaped. ... more texts