What is the meaning of life?
What is the purpose of my life?
The Triumphant Trudge
"They shall walk, and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)
Deep in the heart of every person is a passionate desire to know that he or she is fulfilling the purpose for which they have been placed here on this earth. Have you found it? Found that one thing that is worthy of your one life?
Dwight D. Eisenhower said, "We succeed in life as in war, only as we are able to identify a single, over-riding objective, and then bend all other considerations to that one thing."
What one thing overrides all other considerations in your life? What noble purpose has captured your spirit? What deep resolve beats in your heart? What great decision has won your full allegiance in life?
Assuming that you have indeed found it, let me now ask — how's it going? If you've been at it for any appreciable length of time then you know by now that the journey is no cake walk. It is not a stroll through the park on a blissful Sunday afternoon. No. The path has many turns – up turns and down turns, ditches on both sides, potholes aplenty, and mounds of debris inconveniently strewn all about.
There are setbacks that stall you, and obstacles that intimidate you. There are bystanders that deride you, backsliders that dismay you, and back-stabbers that dishearten you. There are days when you walk with a company of passionate pilgrims who buoy your spirit with renewed aspiration, and then there are the days when you walk the lonesome valley all by yourself. Alone.
You, my friend, are on the Triumphant Trudge! To trudge, according to Webster, is "to walk steadily, and sometimes laboriously; but ever onward."
Isaiah's poetry says it best, "They shall walk, and not faint." That is, they shall not tire though the way at times be wearisome.
This will always be the case in every soul who follows Christ up Calvary's mountain. Despite the trudge of each deliberate step, an unmistakable tone of triumph attends their every move – for each move is always onward, and ever upward. And the Lord who has gone victorious before us will welcome us with open arms on the day we cross over the finish line.
Taken from devotion by Rylisms, 18 February
