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| top A journal of commentary, narrative and poetry about navigating through life the flame
Until One is Committed
Commitment is a crucial step to achieving success. Goethe1 understood the importance and power of commitment. He stated,
"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness...The moment one definitely commits oneself...all sorts of things occur to help one, that would have never otherwise occurred. A whole stream of events issues from that decision..."
Commitment and confidence are closely linked. Without confidence in the thing or the person to whom we were committing we would be foolish indeed to make a commitment. There must be a reason to trust. Ravi Zacharias, in his book, Jesus Among Other Gods writes,
"Faith, in the Biblical sense, is substantive, based on the knowledge that the One in whom that faith is placed has proven that He is worthy of that trust. In its essence, [Christian] faith is a confidence in the person of Jesus Christ and in His power, so that even when His power does not serve my end, my confidence in Him remains because of who He is."
My commitment to God and to placing my life in His hands issues from the confidence that I have in Him and His wisdom and love. It is not blind faith, but faith that is daily strengthened and confirmed by His working in my life.
And, " a whole stream of events," as Goethe stated, has indeed issued from the decision.
1 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, was an accomplished poet, dramatist, playwright, and novelist. Among his more well-known works is his dramatic epic, Faust
Tumbling heart-struck over common sense
Down this twilight terrestrial path,
With eyes fixed upon the surrounding hills,
I lay down every belief and hope
Before the clear, fiery eyes of inquiry
And discard all the weighty accumulation
From all my days, of rites and sacrifice
To teraphim of my own design and hand.
You protest, “Too brash!”—but I demur,
There is not life enough for less,
Than to live this hope where passion burns;
We choose to live or die each day
If we expose to fire all we believe
And lose what, desperate, we have tried to save,
We will, held by love and hope, see the Day.
- Thomas Fideler
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