What Impact Will This Invitation Have on Your Life?
Dear Sir or Madam,
What is it that you desire for the most?
Is not happiness the greatest desire of anyone’s goal?
But have you ever considered the following questions:
- What exactly is happiness?
- How can anybody tell whether he is actually content?
- And, most importantly, how may this dream be realized?
The greatest technique to determine happiness is to make the following comparison: In the life of a sheep,
- what are the secrets of its happiness?
- What could be better than grazing on a lush grassy pasture?
- What could be better than viewing a lovely field during the day and finding a peaceful spot to sleep at night?
Is it necessary for a sheep to be concerned with any of the following questions in order to be happy and at ease:
- What exactly is happiness? I’m overjoyed. Is there anything else out there?
- What does it mean to “choose”? Is there any other option but to graze on the grass, to eat what is before me?
- What exactly is “knowledge”? Is there anything I’m missing?
- What exactly does “quality of life” imply? Is there a better existence than mine?
What if a person never asks those questions, is content with what he knows, and never wonders, “What more is out there that I don’t know?” What about a guy who works harder and harder to acquire more money so that he may furnish his home with expensive furnishings, but leaves his mental bank barren of knowledge? Shouldn’t such a hard worker prefer to be a sheep who lives in peace on pasture and doesn’t have to perform any work?
What do most individuals do with their limited time? How frequently do they ponder the meaning of their existence? What percentage of their time do they commit to learning in order to improve their lives? Do they realize that they have the option of living a life considerably more fascinating than grazing on a little pasture and never knowing that beyond their range of view, there are innumerable meadows and mansions that they could never imagine?
We are living in the most stressful epoch in human history. Long ago Jesus predicted the quality of our lives:
For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.
-Matthew 24:21
Why are there so many people who live in quiet desperation? Why aren’t they improving the quality of their lives? According to Abraham Maslow, a prominent psychologist who dedicated his life to learning the secrets of self-actualized people’s daily lives, He found that just 1% of his studied sample cultivated their potential for a life worthy of a human being, a life summarized in these words:
I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly.
-Christ John 10:10
Who are the happiest people on the planet? How can we transform our lives from quiet desperation to peace and joy? This is just one of many questions that will be addressed in this Invitation.
Consider your own situation for a moment. How much time did you spend reading last year, in this frantic and hectic age? “Very little,” you might say. This Foreword is written just for you because I am so busy!” Its goal is to persuade you to devote some time to your soul, perhaps three to four hours, by reading the full Invitation. You’ll discover that it may invigorate and motivate you to reorder your priorities, find more time in your hectic schedule, and have a stronger drive to pursue what matters most to you.
It will demonstrate that the quality of life our Creator intended for us is not inferior to that of a sheep, who works harder during the day and sleeps more quietly at night, the sheep or the man? It will demonstrate that your ability to select the quality of your life makes you a victor, not a victim:
I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life.
-Deuteronomy 13:19
It will demonstrate that the quality of our spirit is what is important in our lives, is our spirit, because our spirit is what distinguishes us from animals.
The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.
-John 6:63
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