Shirley
The ideal life is a thief of joy
The dictionary defines ideal as: existing only in the imagination; desirable or perfect but not likely to become a reality.
The “ideal life” is one of the greatest stealers of joy and appreciation of any and every season of life that you will find yourself in. It is a thief that prevents us from fully and truly embracing our now. This is because the ideal is illusive. It is akin to a magical or mythical creature like big foot or Cinderella’s fairy god-mother, it is the representation of this romantic idea of how our life should look like if everything in our life was perfect and we were perfect. The ideal is this magical image of life that we are all searching and seeking for. Unfortunately, or fortunately, none of us is perfect and life is not perfect. Life is just life; it is messy and unpredictable! This is the constant in life, and adulting. You may have this image of marriage and how it should look like until you get married. You have this idea of how owning a particular car should look like until you own it. You may have an idea of how having children should look like until you have one. You may have this idea of how your life should look like when you are 30 or 40 and 50 that is until life dares to teach you its many lessons and throws you a curve ball and gives you something different. Basically, life is often unideal. That is why chasing it can be haunting and debilitating. The ideal can be quite the slave master, and not only fill you with anxiety and take rest and joy from your life, but if you let it, it can keep you compulsively searching for something that will never be a reality.
Interestingly enough, the idea of what represents an ideal life, which includes everything from how our social life, career life and status “should look like”, is not constant and is ever evolving. It is influenced by what we watch, listen to, culture, religion, tradition, childhood (what we saw growing up), and now it is also heavily influenced by social media. If all the above is allowed to sip into the lens with which we view life, then it has the potential to touch every area of our life and influence how we determine the ideal life. Example, social media if allowed will determine what being successful looks like, and until your life looks like what the source of your ideal life says it should look like, then it leads to dissatisfaction and often prevents us from enjoying and maximising our now. It will also inform how you pick a spouse or even if they will make you happy because it will determine what the ideal husband or wife looks like, and what they should or should not do. It will inform everything, even how a happy family should look like, to what is proper and acceptable. Ironically all these ideologies are captured from words or pictures taken in a few seconds and clips made by people who don’t really give you a true glimpse into their life but more of a curated or manipulated existence, and should not be the foundation by which we live our lives by.
Hence, you must be very careful to consistently check your heart whenever you find yourself dissatisfied with your life. Sometimes the dissatisfaction is necessary as it is from the Holy Spirit and requires you to make some necessary changes or put in more work or change directions, but other times it is because we are chasing our illusive ideal life. So, you must be intentional and constantly search and find out what is the foundational truth that is ruling your life about the now you may find yourself in. You must be disruptive in your thinking, and instead use the lens that God gives, and not the lens which life gives you or you will spend your life being miserable because your life will never look like the illusive ideal life!
So, what do you have in your hands now, look at that and really see it for what it is and find joy and appreciation in it. If you are struggling to appreciate what you have or the now you find yourself in, then seek the Lord and ask Him to give you the correct lens with which to view your life. A lens that will allow you to not only appreciate where you are, but to even find enjoyment as you work towards different future hopes and dreams.
verses
John 10: 10 – The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Psalms 118:24 This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
Philippians 4:8-9 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
James 4: 13-17 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
Mathew 6:34 Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Mathew 6:33-34- But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Philippians 4:11-13 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Romans 12: 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
James 4:13-15 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”