Doing and Being

Everyone of us sets goals and hopes to achieve specific results. Yet, there is a danger in depending upon achieving results.

“Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything.” - Thomas Merton

We must spend time both "doing" and "being." Doing things, setting goals, and hoping for great results is natural and expected. Jesus told a parable about investing talents and using the abilities we have been given (Matthew 25). He also taught us how to spend time being in relationship with His Father (John 15). Our hope is not defined by our results; and we continue to hope for the fruit of our labours.