John Ortberg continues Chapter 3 of All the Places to Go with a discussion of what-if? people. What-if? people lead imaginative lives. A what-if? attitude is their response to ideas and events. Pastor Ortberg adds: “What-if” is a big idea, as big as God, for it is the practice of God.”
John adds that God still is looking for what-if? people because we were made for more and we are missing out. But our hunger for more never will be satisfied if the “more” we want is for ourselves. In the Bible, open doors are God’s invitation to make our lives count, with His help, for the sake of others.
In The Sacred Journey, Frederick Buechner speaks of what happens when we forget ‘for the sake of others’:
“To journey for the sake of saving our own lives is little by little to cease to live in any sense that really matters, even to ourselves, because it is only by journeying for the world’s sake when the world bores and sickens and scares you half to death- that little by little we start to come alive.”
If we simply seek more for ourselves, more actually turns out to be less. Rather than looking for opportunities for self-advancement, we need to seek more opportunities to love.
Today’s question: Following your vocation loss, what opportunities have you had to be a what-if? person? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Living with one foot raised”
