Get a
life. Get a real life in the real
world...ever heard comments like that?
When my man
couldn’t quite understand where I was coming from, either my point of view or
my lifestyle choice, he would say , “Get in the real world!” I would usually respond with a sadness
because it was he that needed to “get in the real world”.
My man’s view was from that of the world, a
world’s eye view, one of work and work.
His real world was a man’s world, it was mostly found in the rock-hard,
work-hard business of road construction. It was all about dump trucks, loaders, packers
and graders. Big machinery, iron-strong equipment that
dug up, dumped on, packed down, rolled over and graded straight smooth, with
the eyes of a level. His work was big but it was operating in just a corner of
the real world.
There were
other corners to living in this world. I
often wondered why he thought he was in the real world.
He didn’t
know then what he would soon and soon, begin to know, the real world is
that with eternity in mind. The last few
years he was with me, I noticed a change, he was not so preoccupied with work,
he began to relax and he began to understand me more. He began to laugh more and to cry more. He didn’t know it yet, but his heart was
softening and he was beginning to be part of the real world.
This past
week I have been reminded of his words because in our book discussion we have
been talking about this world and that world. One is about trying to stay on the
right path and the other is about looking for easy street.
One of them,
the world of heavenly things, affects our soul, it is about the things that
affect our life after this life. And we talked
of the other, the one that takes away from our life, it sucks life out of us,
it damages our soul. In one world we
love our neighbour as our self and the other loves self, it loves self
indulgence and self gain. One world is lived
by self-denial the other by selfishness.
Those who are
in the latter don’t even realize that with all this love of self, they end up
being their own worst enemy.
“Their destiny is destruction, their
God is their stomach and their glory is in their shame.
Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in Heaven.”
Philipians
3 : 19
These are the worlds we’ve been talking about. Right now, I
know beyond any doubt that my man is in the real
world and I am pressing on towards it.
