The way you see your life shapes your life!
The way you view life is your life metaphor. It's your description of how life works and what you expect from it; it influences your life more than you realize and determines your expectations, values, relationships, goals, and priorities. To fulfill the purposes God has for you, you will have to base your view on the
biblical metaphors of life. These are: Life is a
test, and life is a
trust.
Life is a test - God continually tests people’s character, faith, obedience, love, integrity, and loyalty. Character is both developed and revealed, and all of life is a test. When you understand that life is a test, you realize that every day is important. God wants you to pass the tests of life, so he never allows the tests to be greater than the grace he gives you to handle them.
Life is a trust - We are to be stewards of whatever God gives us. All we enjoy is to be treated as a trust that God has placed in our hands. If you treat everything as a trust, God promises three rewards in eternity: affirmation, promotion, and celebration.
Unless you are faithful in small matters, you won’t be faithful in large ones.” Luke 16:10a (NLT)
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The literary devices of simile and metaphor are similar yet different: both are comparisons but the simile includes one of four indicative words: “like, as, than, or resembles.” The metaphor includes none of these words because the metaphor would then become a simile; but a metaphor says that the two items compared “are,” not “like” but “are.”
Simile: Life resembles a test; Life is like a trust. Metaphor: Life is a test; life is a trust.
I can’t help but wonder if, when in our own minds and because of our learning about and adopting as part of us, many of the people written about in the Bible, we move from looking at life in the simile-stage of questioning what life is really all about — “Gee, is life like a test?” — into the metaphor-stage of perceiving and accepting life as fact — “Life is a test!” are we then more able to recognize life’s purpose as God planned it for each and everyone one of us?
If that is true, then the more we learn by going “further up and further in” by studying the Bible and thus, deepening our relationship with God, the more chance we have of understanding, as much as God will allow, life’s purpose. The answer, therefore, then at least for me, lies in the Word, the Creator, and the Word made flesh; I know and readily admit, I can’t learn it by myself and on my own. I don’t want to be the simile and guess; I want to be the metaphor and know. How about you?
I am a dog-mother. Prince is a Boston Terrier, whom I readily proclaim to all who will listen as being a blessing from God. God gave him to me at a very low point in my life, and his constant companionship coupled with his unconditional love of and trust in me continues to give me a reason to get up in the morning and a reason to smile. But, truly, the most blessed thing about Prince is that he does not just belong to me, he does not just cause me to smile, he does not just lift my spirits. He belongs to so many others. He goes with me practically any and everywhere I go, especially to church; and he has become a part, large or small, of many lives bringing sunshine to others through kisses on their ears or being something to pet in a rapid encounter in Walmart while remembering their childhood and the fun they had with their own Boston. Prince is seven years old now; and although he acts like a puppy constantly wanting to play with his ball, I know he is getting older. God will take him home when He is ready, and I can’t stop that because Prince is not mine; he is a gift on loan to me from God; and consequently, I am trying to be as good a steward of my gift as I can be by allowing Prince to touch the hearts of others for God. Do I want Prince to die? No! Will I be heart-broken when he does? Yes! Will my loss be tempered by my understanding and acceptance of the fact that Prince was only on loan to me from a merciful and loving Father? Yes!
If my pain in losing Prince will become more bearable
because I know that he was not mine, never mine, to begin with, would not the same hold true for me and for others in reference to God calling His human gifts home to Him through death?
They were never ours to begin with; just on loan as God shared them with us, perhaps tested us with them, and trusted them to us. What kind of stewards have we been and are we being to those whose lives have touched and are part of ours?
then each life and each encounter is a teaching moment. It is not something that can be held forever, although we certainly would if we could, but is to be celebrated and then let go.
This only makes sense, though, if there is more to life than the present. If there is not future, especially after death, then we are to be pitied above all other creatures. I think that because we long for life to continue indefinately, God surely has placed eternity in our hearts.
Yes, kettle, I believe that every second of every moment is a teaching moment and that every encounter with every person is a teaching moment even if that moment lasts for only several minutes. The length of time of the teaching moment is not the issue nor what matters; what matters is what have we learned in that encounter that will help us during the remainder of our lives. And help us so that from each of those moments we can help others — “…we are comforted so that we may comfort….”
But I would go one step further. If each encounter is a learning moment because of what we are taught as a result of its occurring, then is that learning moment not also a teaching and learning moment for the person with whom we came in contact and/or with whom we spoke? Is it a two-way street? And if it is, what, by our behavior and words, are we teaching? If, in spite of a long line of traffic behind us, we stop and let another driver make a left-hand turn in front of us, do we remind him of kindness? If we choose to speak gently and friendly to a sales clerk who had just insulted us, do we help them in a myriad of ways by “turning the other cheek”? Did we learn because of these two simple and spontaneous occurrences? And did we teach to someone else during what was for us a learning moment? I wonder how many people stop to realize that it’s not always about “me.” We learn to teach as others learn to teach. Do we perpetuate the devil’s influence by meeting rudeness and cruelty with rudeness and cruelty, or do we shine forth the light of God for all to see by saying and doing what “is noble and honorable”?
I believe with all my heart, kettle, that there is “more to life than the present”; and I believe that there is “a future after death”; I am staking my life on it and living and acting as I do because I believe in its existence. And I believe in its existence “…’cause the Bible tells me so.”
But, kettle, I don’t want to live forever if living forever is to be accomplished in this body and on this earth. I don’t “long for life to continue indefinitely” here, not in an ungodly world and a decaying body. I won’t even say that I long to “live indefinitely.” Longevity is not what I seek; but I do fervently pray to be able to spend eternity with God. So…it is not the quantity of time but the guality of the Person with whom I wish to spend the time that matters most to me, plus there’s a dear friend with whom I pray, once we are on the other side, that I can sit and talk with minus any restrictions and interruptions forever and ever. God and my dear friend…now that is an eternity worth living for.
My dad always said that we should cry when a child is born and smile when a person dies.
Interesting thought, don’t you think, kettle? The reversal of normal thought for sure.
If a person “lives in Christ,” then not only how, but, more importantly, why do we mourn when that person dies? I know why: it is for our loss when we should be thinking more about their gain. A friend in my church died Saturday after lingering in frail health and a coma for days. Even though I do not know any and most everything that is on the other side, I cannot any more wish for him, than did I for my dad who died of advanced Parkinson’s disease, that he should live in such a state and in such a decaying body. So, yes, I shall cry at my friend’s funeral out of selfishness; but I will smile with my face and in my heart as my pastor delivers the eulogy with hope and compassion because I can and will celebrate my friend’s learning from each teaching moment, living what he learned,”fighting the good fight,” and being rewarded by seeing God face-to-face. “Celebrate and let go,” most assuredly, “I can do no less.”