"Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not men,"
Steve Maraboli said "Live your vision and demand your success." which, on paper, sounds great. It sounds like that's what we are supposed to do. Our society teaches us from an early age to strive to be the best, that the man who dies with the most toys wins. This is not, however, the way God intended us to live. There's nothing wrong with trying to be successful in your work or in your home or in your school, but when it becomes your first priority, something needs to change.
I know I talk a lot about priorities so I won't go too much into it, but the problem with most people is that they don't have their priorities right. Unfortunately the gleam and glimmer of money and stuff seems so wonderful and is a bit over-powering. However I find it funny how often times we can strive so much for luxury items to help improve our lives that we stress ourselves out beyond being able to actually relax. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with working hard, but it's important that we remember that we are workers for the Lord first, workers for brothers second, and workers for ourselves last.
I know I'm talking mostly about work and business and a lot of you lovely readers aren't really working at a company, striving to the very top in order to make more and more money, but what about school? What about sports? There's nothing wrong with competing, but when these things get in the way of serving others, or more importantly serving God, it becomes no different than when the Israelites made a golden calf that we read about in Exodus 32 (except for the fact that that was a calf made of gold and what we're talking about is not a calf made of gold but, it's the same in principal).
In essence, it's okay to have a job or to do well in school and to work hard, but we are to make sure that we don't put anything before God or the needs of others. Today I would like to encourage you to take a look at your life and see what you spend the most time working on. Is your work going towards God? Or is your work going towards the things of this world? Are you just trying to get the best grades or the best score? Are you putting your work towards God? If not I'd like to encourage you to maybe change a couple things in your schedule. After all, heaven is eternal, everything else ends quickly.
