Comments by "Ivan Engel" (@ivanengel8887) on "Become a Field Worker - First Things Foundation" video.
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It's a great ad... Is it bad that I know I do not want this for myself? I already have a path I'm pursuing. I don't want to dump on the philosophy behind this because it's what you're always talking about, it seems to be your "authentic" beliefs and you might be attached to them, but I do feel like saying this is important. I agree with the criticism against the Enlightenment, and I'm the first one to espouse it, but it does seem to me that God commanded us to rule creation. We cannot go so far to the other opposite direction that we forget that God's call is pointed and clear. We need to gain the phronema, clear our nous, and embody God's mind in our own, to be transformed in the renewing of our mind. Sacrifice is necessary, but the question is what do we sacrifice and to whom? What shape will it take?
I don't know all of the fruit I will bear or not, but I'm already in the process of transformation, and although I agree we should focus on real relationships, on building things through love, I don't believe that the exact shape of the sacrifice we ought to make appears brightly as a by-product of our interaction with the other... there is a sense of losing ourselves to them and their wants. That is the same thing that the woke want and believe. I believe the shape of the sacrifice we ought to make, our destiny if you will, is written in God's plan, and is both unique and universal.
It's universal in the sense of me not needing to stress too much about my "essence", or my "true or authentic being". I'm a human being and God's instructions are clear. And it's unique in the sense that I have gifts and loves which guide me towards fulfilling my existential promise and actualizing my potential for good. How can we know beforehand? To me it seems impossible.
And in that sense, I do believe that we need to take responsibility for our will and will the good as we are able to actualize it, within ourselves, within our limitations, praying to be able to transcend somewhat the evils of our limitations and embrace them as a means of apprehending the divine in our souls. To the point that we can go to the cross willingly, to forget the divine on the cross, to lose our minds, without losing ourselves.
I believe that meaning is given from above, and in that sense, it's not only sacred, but also a mystical aspect of life that cannot be replaced. Helping other people will certainly bring us closer to God and to the real possibility of mystical transformation. In a sense, it cannot fail. But in another sense it's like the discussion about faith and works: our works often overshadow our faith, and we become proud to the point that works themselves become stumbling blocks to the real encounter with the other. Even the encounter with the other can become an impediment to truly encounter the other, like the woke teach us daily. We hide ourselves in our jobs, in the people and activities we love, but the Lord knows our heart. I feel like going would be a way to hide, instead of being a way to "find myself" (which I don't need to do, but follow Christ and insofar as I'm transformed I'm finding myself in Him).
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