Those are C.S. Lewis's words, not mine.
When I read them, I thought it was funny... I have been thinking about this all week.
This past year, "potential" became my least favorite word. I felt like it was misleading: all that potential would just fizzle in the light of things eternal, right? I mean, I had all the potential in the world to change the country, to revamp the court system and be the next great world leader. And so, I determined that those would be my life's goals. "You have such potential!" people would say. Graduation was basically just an opportunity to bask in that fateful word and it's many cohorting synonyms (such great promise, so many things ahead of you, wonderful opportunities, bright future, things to look forward to, etc).
I went through a phase this summer where I challenged that. What the point, I asked myself, to set earthly goals when they could be met and then be discarded? I somehow and wrongly separated earthly actions from glorifying God. If it was an earthly goal, it had become in my mind a second class goal.
Then, while doing the dishes yesterday, I had one of those moments. You know, the ones where you just sort of have the wind knocked right out of you. One of those "I've been so blind" moments when you just want to uproot all the past silly thoughts you've had on a subject and plant a whole new garden of beautiful ideals.
Goals, even dead ones, have a purpose. If we are of the mindset that God works all things out for the good of those who love him, if we acknowledge his all-powerfulness in our everyday lives... how silly it would be for me (or anyone) to assume that goals, ambition and even dreaded potential don't have a place.
It's not, then, the goals that are the problem. It's how we deal with the goals when they are either met or denied. If we wrap ourselves up in some delusion that path we chose is the end all and be all, we are faced with two horrible options: the deep disappointment of having that path be the wrong one or not work out, or having it work out beautifully and being left with nothing to strive for.
It's so simple... and yet so deep. We're given desires, dreams and experiences for a purpose. How foolish to simply throw healthy youthful ambition out the window because it will end. All things end, but wouldn't it be nice to have something to show for the process?
