Change Your Thinking 3 - What is Important ...

Thursday, September 16, 2010. What is important for your life? What do you value a lot? What do you want to reach? What do you want to have? What do you want to be?

The Old Story of What Is Important …

The question “what is important” is a very old question. Sometimes it has been asked explicitly. People knew that they were looking for things which are really valuable. Poets and writers have searched for it in their stories. Philosophers have tried to determine it by thinking and reason.

People have always answered the question of what is important by their choices. What you choose is important for you. If it would not be important, you would carry out another choice. Even if you do not know consciously what you should believe about importance, indirectly you always pick an answer: you act or you do not act.

Is importance just a matter of personal choice? Or is there more about it? Is there some kind of deeper measuring rod, some more wisdom? Are we completely free in determining what is important to us? Or are there facts which we should take into account?

Jesus

In John 14: 6 Jesus sais: “I am the way and the truth and the life”. He puts his own person forward as the thing of highest importance for humans. That is, of course, quite remarkable or questionable. He confronts the people of his time and with them us today with a strong claim. He is in the center of our existence. He is the one who is most important.

There is a lot to ask and a lot to say when we talk about Jesus as the most important center of life. Why is he so important? Is that an absolute thing, independent of our choices? Is it as independent of our choices as the sun is there and the moon and the stars? How is he related to the overall framework of our life and our world?

Jesus invites us to come to him and to discover what importance is about. That will change our thinking. It will change our actions as well - we will make different choices when we got to know him better. When we choose him to be the most important thing of our life, we bring our choice into tune with the reality of the world … We are talking about far reaching facts! ... more texts