Your Extraordinary Life

I feel deeply privileged to serve as your chaplain! Why? I see the incredible ways you all invest your lives into the lives of others.  You care about their wellbeing. You are willing to do something about it…even setting aside your own ambitions in the process. Or perhaps more accurate…your own ambition is to bless others!
 
How great is that?!
 
In his blog entry, Donald Miller affirms such an ambition as this. From his perspective, in doing so, one can live a truly meaningful life. I agree. He asserts that one should choose meaningful effort over pleasure:

Pleasure isn't always bad. In fact, pleasure is mostly good. But when pleasure drives us, we end up living sad stories.

If we want to be more satisfied with life, our ambitions should be more meaningful.  Sure, it's okay to make a lot of money.  But if a movie were all about a character trying to make money, nobody would call that a meaningful story.

How do we live more meaningful stories?  We connect our ambitions to the wellbeing of others.  Make your ambitions heartfelt. Choose to want a great marriage, to have a well-loved family, to be a supportive listener, to be a protective leader.  Make each of your ambitions count by connecting them to the wellbeing of others.
 
At the very core of the Christian journey is this mandate to love…to care about others to such a measure that our own actions reflect those of Jesus himself, who was willing to give up his life for our own.  However, to love in this manner, we must draw upon the resources of God. So, as you continue to face the challenges of this semester, I continue pray for you, trusting God to unleash in you His boundless resources. May they fill you up to overflowing so you have incredible capacity to love!
 
Here’s to maximizing your ambition to love…to invest into the wellbeing of others!  Here’s to your extraordinary life!