A GPS for your Life

| If I were to ask you your philosophy of life, could you tell it to me? Most of us don’t think about our life philosophy, the operating set of beliefs that drives our worldview. Our philosophy of life comes out of us in indirect ways: the attitude we wake up with in the morning, how we treat other people, how we approach a new situation, the things we spend our time, energy and money on.
It’s worth taking a moment to examine our life philosophy because, in many ways, it creates our legacy. It’s like a GPS for our life. Most of you have had some experience with a GPS system in your car or, perhaps, your smartphone and know how it works. You program your destination into your GPS and it gives you the directions you need to get where you need to go. These technological wonders are a great gift to many of us, especially those who are “directionally challenged.” The thing I love about GPS is that it never gets mad at you. No matter what I do and how many wrong turns I make, the GPS always has the same gentle response: “re-calculating”. Without a destination, the GPS cannot help me “calculate” or “re-calculate” the route I need to take.
Someone once joked,“Somebody stole my GPS. My life now lacks direction.” Many people have lives that lack direction. That’s why we need a dependable philosophy, a GPS for our life, if you will. With a reliable philosophy of life, we can program our life with a set of beliefs, values and priorities that will guide us to our destination. The best source of that philosophy, of course, is Jesus. He is the Word of God come down from heaven, says scripture. He is God’s revelation of the way our lives should be lived.
Jesus’ entire philosophy of life was based on love and service. Author John Mason writes, “When you base your life on principle, 99% of your decisions are already made.”
He’s right. But let’s change that quote just a little bit. In light of Jesus’ teachings let’s word it like this: “When you base your life on love/service, 99% of your decisions are already made.”
Do you see what Jesus is trying to do in today’s lesson? He is giving his listeners a new picture of what their lives should look like.
In Christ,

Fr. László