John Eldredge, A Journey of Desire

"If I had my way, I would be writing on a beach in Costa Rica, running a small business, and just enjoying all that life has [to offer]. I will one day experience loving what I do for life. I'll sell [my house] and then go [to Costa Rica]. I have to! it's my calling."

"I will one day experience loving what I do for life. I have to! It's my calling."

Those words haunt me. Spoken by a friend of mine so candidly, they haunt me because they echo the sentiments within my own heart. They speak to the part of me that was subjected to unbearable frustration when my life's inspiration was silenced by duty.

Something in the human soul knows there's more than the day-to-day routine we've become accustomed to. Our hearts won't allow us to become fully habituated to our activities of contractual obligation.

"I will one day experience loving what I do for life."

How have we gotten to this place? We've been given a sacred, precious gift: one life to live.

Yet we spend all of our time, energy, and resources on pursuits that we "have to" do.

True, "if a man does not work, he shall not eat." (2 Thessalonians 3:10) We require money to make any kind of comfortable lifestyle a possibility.

But something deep within our hearts knows we were created for more than a few years of busyness and responsibility, that race to their conclusion when the final vapor of breath escapes our weary lungs.

Take a look at the ways in which we choose to escape the commonplace: movies chronicling others' adventures, music that tugs at particular heartstrings within us, hinting at a profound vacancy in our experience. Sunsets, mountains, and waterfalls all rouse a craving for splendor that surpasses intellectual understanding.

Isn't there a place where beauty lasts longer than a moment? Where we can dwell in the way of adventure and discovery, and it doesn't vanish after a fleeting instant of glory? Do we even still hear the yearning? Or have we silenced our desire by burying it under a pile of duties and caffeine?

"I've got conference calls coming out of the wazoo this afternoon."

"Is it Friday yet?"

"I have to work."

Why are we, as a culture, so tired? We endure Monday to Friday, keeping our eyes on Saturday, but during the weekends, we're too busy dreading Monday to truly enjoy and discover what life has to offer. We're busy, stressed, and always wanting something else.Will it ever come? How do we get beyond the mundane, into the life that our heart's whispers allude to?

"I want to be able to love my job. I know a handful of people who do, and it seems so wonderful."

My friend put so succinctly into words a conundrum many of us have found ourselves in.

Where do we find a satisfying mesh of duties and dreams? How can we answer our desire for more while still paying the bills?

Are we serving "the system"? Are we afraid to take a risk, so we blindly continue doing what we've been taught is "normal?" We keep working in jobs we despise, under bosses we tolerate, for corporations that are not aware of our existence. Week in and week out, we don't exercise the courage it would require to look beyond.

Proverbs 29:18 "Without a vision, the people perish."

Is there another way? Somehow, can we invest the effort we are currently spending into creating systems that will eventually generate income for us? Can we channel our energy into a method of earning that allows our inner desire for live and love to breathe again? Are we inclined to risk the security of a biweekly direct deposit, to venture into the unknown? Will we step in the direction of our dreams, where anything could happen?

Can we take a moment to move out of our saturated schedules and comfort zones and dream about the options we didn't realize we had? Can we listen to what our deeper desires are saying, and allow ourselves to consider the prospect that something "else" might be available to us? Can we formulate a plan? Can we draw a "vision" to avoid wasting any more time and life in our circular routines?

If we find that change isn't practical or desirable, can we shift our perspective within the context we are? Can we begin to pause, feel, and appreciate?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Allow me to muse on this cliched phrase.

"Maybe I'll go for a walk. The street I live on inspires me."

Perhaps beauty, inspiration, and a sense of awe can be experienced in the everyday.

Perhaps these things are more than emotions elicited by extraordinary encounters. Perhaps it is a walk down the street on which we live, which, if we have our eyes open, can bring us, back to a place of awe and adventure. Maybe shifting our focus from what we have to do to observations of the people and places we frequent daily will enlighten us to some of the mysteries of the heart that we have forgotten about or muffled. Perhaps the feeling of soaring delight could enter our souls again by changing our approach. Could we view inconveniences as opportunities to absorb the feeling of vulnerability, of newness, of spontaneity? Could we use the time that inconvenience affords us to look around, and embrace the beauty and the pain that we find in the world around us?

We can breathe more deeply, give more generously, feel more acutely, love more truly, live mythically, right where we are, with our feet on the ground. We can soak up the existence that is ours.

At our very core however, no matter how accurate a reflection of our dreams our lives end up being, or how supreme our perspectives, I believe we were created for more than anything this world has to offer. The world is broken; paradise has been lost. Joy may be found, slavery to the system halted, but will it ever truly satisfy?

Even so, there's still an unanswered question deep within our hearts.

Somehow, we sense that there is still something beyond.

We yearn to dwell where colors are rich and rest is complete. Where work is satisfying and progress is natural. A place where relationships are full and genuine, and the sun shines all day, warming us to our cores. Where the air is fresh and the roads are clean. A place of true battle, true joy, and true love.

"He has put eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from the beginning." Ecclesiastes 3:11

In the end, I believe our hearts know that we were designed for eternity: nothing missing, nothing broken. We were created for a place of peace, adventure, longing, fulfillment, and joy.

Forever. Life to the full.

Hope remains.