Actions
“What determines your actions? Your thoughts? Your attitudes?” We all know that it should be God that guides our lives but before we get into that lecture, really stop and think. Why do you do what you do?
Aristotle said in his book, Rhetoric, 'Thus every action must be due to one or other of seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite.'
Within this, he notes that all actions are due either to emotion or reason and that we seek pleasant things and act to reduce pain.
During the season of Lent, we are invited into a discipline of prayer and self-examination. While we know that we should submit to God’s will and purpose in our daily lives, we are more likely to affirm Aristotle’s observations. God has offered an alternative to this way of life. Faith.
Ask yourself this, ‘How are my daily actions and attitudes being pushed by chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite?’ This is the self-examination we are invited into during Lent. This prepares us for Easter; a time to celebrate the life promised to us in Christ. Now is the time to journey through our own wilderness. Are you ready?
“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43:18-19
See you Sunday!
Missy