Motivations

Conventional wisdom says that one does what they love, what they’re passionate about. While this is true, it’s not the whole picture from a Biblical viewpoint, as follows:

Does God call you to do something that you don’t feel a passion for?

Good question, Ross. Run it by biblical examples: - Do you think Abraham had a passion to leave Ur and strike out, “not knowing where he went”? - Do you think Jonah has a passion to preach to Nineveh? - Do you think the 12 disciples had a passion to be fishers of men when Jesus first called them? - Do you think Jeremiah had a passion to give a message to his people that God would judge them? In my experience, God calls us and we respond with obedience. As we do so and get involved, He begins to work in our hearts. What do you think God is calling you to do? (It doesn’t sound like you are passionate about it!) Source: http://www.urbana.org/ns.aj.showall.cfm?RecordId=2863

There’s two significant points behind this. The first point is that passion can be created from a human perspective. Much like how happiness can be a state of mind that one puts himself or herself into, one can also generate passion within themselves for a certain topic. The second point is that God is a major, if not the only driving force behind creating this passion, through obedience of His will. It all boils down to putting Christ as the Lord in your life.

In other news, for these next few weeks, I’m seriously reflecting and thinking on my motivations for applying for law school, and my career and life goals in general. Any and all advice is welcome.

I hope not everyone from China is this creepy

Session Start: April 15, 2008

• kw..KW..?ok – heading back to TO this weekend anyone? (*****@hotmail.com)
• Storm (*******@hotmail.com)

(12:34 AM) Storm:	hi
(12:35 AM) kw..KW..?ok – he:	hey who is this?
(12:35 AM) Storm:	oh ,I’m from China
(12:35 AM) Storm:	see?
(12:37 AM) kw..KW..?ok – he:	cool
(12:37 AM) Storm:	Haven’t seen you for a long time
(12:37 AM) kw..KW..?ok – he:	sorry do i know you?
(12:38 AM) Storm:	I knew yu last year
(12:38 AM) Storm:	remember?
(12:38 AM) Storm:
(12:38 AM) kw..KW..?ok – he:	don’t recall man
(12:38 AM) kw..KW..?ok – he:	where did we meet?
(12:39 AM) Storm:	I didn’t mean we met before.\
(12:39 AM) Storm:	Just knew on the net
(12:40 AM) Storm:	see?
(12:40 AM) kw..KW..?ok – he:	where did we meet on the net?
(12:40 AM) Storm:	msn You know that
(12:40 AM) Storm:	haha
(12:41 AM) kw..KW..?ok – he:	i don’t think i know who you are
(12:41 AM) kw..KW..?ok – he:	sorry
(12:42 AM) Storm:	That doesn’t matter.
(12:42 AM) Storm:	we can know each other again,huh
(12:43 AM) kw..KW..?ok – he:	i don’t talk to strangers on msn
(12:43 AM) Storm:	oh
(12:43 AM) Storm:	I see
(12:43 AM) kw..KW..?ok – he:	sorry!
(12:43 AM) kw..KW..?ok – he:	maybe you can meet someone else who’s more open
(12:43 AM) Storm:	Would you say “goodbye”
(12:44 AM) Storm:	bye
(12:44 AM) kw..KW..?ok – he:	sure thing
(12:44 AM) kw..KW..?ok – he:	later, nice talking to you
(12:44 AM) Storm:	me too
(12:44 AM)	Storm has been blocked

Materialism vs Spirituality: Chicken or the Egg?

Warning – This may be a bit high level for y’all

Some very interesting observations came to me recently, when I experienced first-hand that church and culture directly clashing within what I was learning.

We’ve been studying Marx as a political philosopher,  and I must say it’s some challenging reading, to boil down his theoretical framework to more practical terms. Marx, as we all knowed, advocated a grand vision of economic bliss far different than what capitalism has done today. Time has proven which philosophy was the correct one. Today, Marx exists only as a footnote, and a critic to the capitalist tradition.

One of his beliefs I took particular issue with was his stance on materialism, as follows:

It is a truism that our material needs must be satisfied before any other form of life (e.g. political, intellectual) can exist. - German Ideology

Now, I’m familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and consequent philosophies that have basically stated to take care of your physical needs as a primary concern before addressing other higher level concerns. However, something still irks me about these philosophies in how exclusive they are in saying that material needs come first. Add in examples of priests who have sacrificed themselves in Nazi death camps, or countless martyrs throughout history, and this claim becomes less clear. Finally, in one of his sermons, the famous Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias declared that through Jesus resisting the temptation of Satan to attend to all his materialistic needs (“Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” – Matthew 4:4). From all this, it’s obvious that there are serious flaws with this belief of a merely material-focused reality.

I talked to my professor about this dilemma, and his reply was this – Marx’s materalism was merely from a scientific and historical perspective, not a normative perspective. Societies only progress once they have met their physical needs. However this was merely his own opinion. But to argue that people can only progress linearly through physical needs before thinking of spiritual ones seriously discredits human ingenuity. Where are the experts, the secondary sources to confirm my professor’s ideas? Why does Marx not elaborate on this further, and explain that that there was a spiritual dimension to life? Was there even vision for spirituality and faith in Marx’s ideas? And why is there such a disconnect from the ideal production-based future that Marx envisioned and the terrible realities of the twentieth century?

While Marx may have some plausible truth in his claims of materialistic needs, like the rest of his philosophy, it is questionable how practical his theory here is. Marx may have had good intentions, but all this only proves is that the philosophies of man cannot fill a deeper sense of purpose and longing that God provides.