Faith Venture

Say you have chosen a path. On the journey, you have decided that Jesus is your best guide. So you try to follow him, do what he does, live like he teaches.

How is it going?

Ryan Holliday write in his newsletter The Daily Stoic something geared toward what they call the Stoic or philosophical life that is quite applicable to those of us trying to follow the with-God life. The parallels between the Stoic life and the with-God life are startling. We can learn from each other.

Holliday writes:

If you’re wondering if you’re getting better, wiser, more philosophical in this Stoic journey, here’s a test: How many arguments are you getting in each day? How often are you fighting with others? We talked about Elon Musk a while ago. Imagine having ten kids, billions of dollars, seven companies, tens of thousands of employees, a real opportunity to write a better future…and spending your time seeking out culture war issues to get sucked into. Imagine engaging with random trolls online, getting into spats with journalists and politicians. You might think that sounds pretty silly…but are we really that much better in our own, smaller lives?

Does that sound like your Christian life? Always arguing. Always proving a point that your theology is more scriptural? People avoid you because of that attitude?

Or maybe when you rise from your night’s slumber, you go to the bathroom, make your coffee, sit in prayer or meditation, and consider—what will I do today that reflects following Jesus on this journey with God? Will I show the kind of love Jesus talked about? Or will I be obnoxious and argumentative?

This entry was posted on August 29, 2024 at 6:18 am and is filed under discernment, Disciplines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.