It is curious to see how we define our goals, values and destinies.
In any religion it is very easy to allow values to become disproportionate and to permit facts to occupy the place of truth in one’s theology. 143:6.3
Often our mortal vision is focused on immediacy. At this moment or, at most, for the period we estimate, we will live in the flesh, even without knowing when the “D” day will be.
Many times, we strive to prolong our earthly life, which is very good, but the fact is that none of us would be able to add a single day of life to our fleshly existence. Of course, good eating habits, exercise, and so forth, can make it even easier for us to live a few more years of life with better quality if we make an effort. But it is also a fact that none of us can in any way add a single day of life to our own carnal experience when the moment of death comes. When life exhales from our bodies, everything will be finished, as seen from the angle of this immediate vision.
On the other hand, any of us, regardless of race, color, sex, education, social, or financial condition, can of our own freewill, achieve eternal life. It is within our reach.
It seems to be a contradiction, doesn’t it? We often strive to embody a longer term of our carnal life, we often do it with commendable grit and determination. And it is also true that sometimes some of us are very relaxed in this sense, but we all hope for a similar result, to live more in the flesh. Many of us forget, or don’t realize, that we have a much greater power than that of striving to win a day in the flesh, and that is to attain eternity.
Yes, we have that power, but we often don’t see this life of eternity. The reason is simple, our material eyes cannot visualize it, yet we can easily perceive it with our spiritual vision if we have gained this spiritual vision.
Interestingly, most mortals are aware of these two realities, the material and the spiritual, at least on the mental level. Of course, material reality dominates us because it seems to “be more real” than spiritual reality beyond the “supposedly immediate” attractions. Thus, we often relegate our spiritual vision, that of eternity, to the background; after all the eternal future is, according to our perception, very distant.
I find this situation curious because, according to Jesus, and I believe in him, Eternity—the Kingdom of Heaven—is within our reach, here and now.
One possible argument is that God is far away while material life is present here and now. But the truth is that God is present in the closest way to everything around us. He is within us, within our minds through the Thought Adjusters. But again, it’s not something we can immediately perceive through the medium of our physical senses.
This intriguing theme is what perhaps suggests the idea that we have difficulties in establishing values. Perhaps because we disproportionately value everything that leads us to self-gratification. We invest a lot in this. Starting with our children’s education, where we invest time and money to “make them better” than we are or were. The literal translation of this is that we invest in making them successful in material life, to which, no matter what, we do not have the possibility of adding a single day of life. Even so, we do not spare time, or money to study other languages, education, sports, dance, culture, and so forth; often there is no time left for other things, such as worshiping the Father.
Of course, all this mortal living is very important too and we have the obligation to achieve good health, comfort, culture, and so forth. But all this is temporary while we live as mortals; therefore, being temporary is not real. If it is not real, these “values” cannot be true, because the truth does not change and does not end. For these “values” to somehow last, it would be necessary for our lives to last, because only then could we take the experiences accumulated throughout life, including our first life experiences.
Taking this into account, would it not be desirable to invest in the attainment of real, true, and lasting values such as eternity? If so, why don’t we do it?
My guess is that we have become slaves to the things that self-gratify us. Have you ever had the opportunity to try a high-quality wine, select, reserved for a few? It’s good, isn’t it? Not only for the taste (which we often don’t even know how to appreciate), but also for the “importance that the moment attributes to us” (self-gratification). If we have the opportunity to live this experience, it should be used to the last drop; but it should end there, with a thank you to the Father for having lived this experience. That’s difficult. Moments like these can awaken false values in us, awaken the desire to achieve even better wine and a more important moment. There is nothing wrong with this, the wrong thing is to transform this into a life goal, a destiny, and become dependent on it to the point of moving away from what really matters, which is the search for spiritual growth, the search for eternal life.
We don’t have a cake recipe for that. Each individual should live their own experience and reflect on the future they want to achieve. If what we want to achieve is eternity, our Father, his perfection, we can make a good assessment of our attitudes to get there.
I take this opportunity to wish you happy holidays.
Enrique Traver