09072022_LbT_Fulfillment

The episode discusses the concept of fulfillment in life. It questions whether the highs and lows we experience truly bring us satisfaction. It emphasizes the importance of perspective and how we view our circumstances. It also highlights the idea that fulfillment comes from worshiping something greater than ourselves, rather than idolizing finite and limited things. The episode encourages self-reflection and acknowledges that true fulfillment may be difficult to grasp and practice. On today's episode of Living by Thriving, when setbacks seem insurmountable, the status quo feels mundane, and even triumphs feel shallow, how can we end up with fulfillment in life? Is life really just the sum of every single high and every single low throughout the days we live? And it seems that the lows triumph over the highs. What I mean by that is the negatives tend to wash over the positives, and we tend to dwell on those negatives that can ruin our days or ruin our moods, even if it's just temporarily. The highs and the joys, I say that in a slightly sarcastic manner, that we go through, are short-lived, and so it's not really joy that we experience, but happiness that fades away. It's very fleeting. And the things we do for fun, the things we do to enjoy our leisure time, does that really provide true fulfillment in the end? When we look back at our lives, and we note choices we made and the decisions we embarked upon, will we look back at those choices with fulfillment and satisfaction, saying, yes, I made the choices in my life that I do not regret, even if I made mistakes, and even if there were highs and lows. My life concluded with fulfillment. Have we stopped to think about that, or are we consumed in the busyness of every single day, experiencing happiness and satisfaction for so we think, and then going to sleep at night feeling unfulfilled with what we are doing, caught in a cycle, stuck in a loop, where we just dwell in our current circumstances and wallow in our misery, even if we like to hide it, even if we try to conceal it. How can we feel fulfilled in life? First off, we have to know what fulfillment even is. So fulfillment, in the dictionary, is the feeling of satisfaction that we get from doing or achieving something, especially something useful. And I can give you the Sunday school answer that, oh, what you do for the glory of God leads to fulfillment. But even though I said that, do you really believe that, or is it just something you've been told, and something that you've memorized in a verse, or dwelled upon because your peers told you about it? What if that doesn't make you feel fulfilled? What can? What can truly make us feel satisfied with our lives? It's no secret that human beings crave more by their nature. It's not something that can be naturally controlled or mitigated. It's just who we are as humans. When we achieve a promotion at work, or when we achieve something, the next logical step is to go one higher, get something better. Even the most successful athletes, the richest of businessmen, the most successful people in the world's eyes often feel unsatisfied. They want more. They may want something new. They want something different. Regardless, they are not content with what they have. And if those people don't feel fulfilled with their lives, how can we even hope to be fulfilled? If the people we look up to as role models and heroes have their own feelings of emptiness and unfulfillment, how can we approach being fulfilled in the more mundane actions of our lives? There may not be a one-size-fits-all answer to this question, but I'll try to dive into it based on my personal experiences, what scripture says, and basically just whatever else comes to mind. So, with fulfillment, one of the things that comes to mind immediately is perspective. Perspective is an interesting thing to think about. Someone can be in the exact same circumstances and the exact same place in life, yet they can view it in two completely contrasting and contradicting ways. For example, if someone got a B in a college class or high school class or whatever, academic class, you can view it with two different perspectives. You can view it in a sense of success, that you passed the class, you got a satisfactory degree, at least in most households, some places they want you to get an A, some people are happy if you even get a C, but those are exceptions to the rule. You got what you wanted to do, you passed, that's one perspective. Another perspective is you didn't do good enough, because you may have not done your best, so you didn't get an A, or you didn't get an A-, or you didn't do as good as you wanted to be, so you're upset about it. I'm not saying that the former perspective is necessarily better than the latter. God knows our hearts and he wants us to do the best that we can for his glory, whether that's an A, whether that's a C, or even if it's worse than that. As long as you're doing your best, that's what matters. And I think that perspective is important when we approach these things, because both the former perspectives of feeling content or discontent, it relies on a very shallow foundation, it's how we feel about it versus how God views it. We feel satisfied that we passed, or we feel unsatisfied because we wanted to do better. But, at the end of the day, God knows, and we know too, but God definitely knows if we put in our best effort towards it. So perspective is important in how we view things, both simple and complicated. This is a relatively simple example, but what about when life gets more muddy? When you think you're doing the right things, even if you've been raised in the church, but you still don't feel fulfilled with your life, you don't feel content, you don't feel satisfied, you fill in the blanks. You might be checking off the boxes, you might be doing everything that your parents want you to do, you might be doing everything your parents don't want you to do, but regardless, you don't feel that fulfillment in life. Jesus says, He has come, that He brings us life, that we may have life, to be more precise, and that we may have life to the full. And if we're not feeling fulfilled with our lives, then clearly we are not having life to the full. And this fulfillment, this joy, this satisfaction that comes from God, is independent of circumstance. But that's something that is hard to grasp tangibly. It may be easy to understand at a high level or mentally, but it's difficult to actually put that into practice. We go through a bunch of highs and lows in life. You name it. Whether you have a major life accomplishment, whether you have some sort of surprise party thrown for you, whether you have something surprising in a good way, whether you get into a car accident, whether you suffer the death of a relative or family member, whether you fail out of a class, whether you get laid off of a job or get a promotion, just endless examples of highs and lows that make us feel happy, unhappy, joyful, or devastated. Those circumstances and those unpredictable things in life will happen. We may plan a variety of things, but at the end of the day, if it's not in God's will, it won't happen, no matter how logical, no matter how sensible, no matter how rational our plans may be. Plans may change. When plans do change, we can feel angry and discontent because it didn't go the way we wanted things to go. But when things do go our way, that oftentimes doesn't make us feel fulfilled either. It's this latter portion I want to focus on today. What happens when things go according to schedule, when things match what you want, but you still don't feel fulfilled? Because it's easy to say, I don't feel fulfilled because bad things are happening or because things are going wrong. That's understandable. The low portions of our lives, the parts where we feel there's no way out, of course that's not going to be a time you feel fulfillment, but what if you are doing what you wanted to do, you are succeeding, you are getting that accomplishment you've wanted, but you don't feel fulfilled, you don't feel satisfied? What then? Well, what's the answer to that? People have thought about answers, of course, for a long time, hundreds of years, thousands of years. This is not something that is just limited to our generation, even though you might check social media and see complaints and you might think, oh, this is just our generation's problem. It's not. This is an intergenerational problem of lack of fulfillment. It always has been and always will be. Remember, we view ourselves as created beings who were created to worship. Worship who? Worship what? That depends. That's different for each person. If we worship God, then we are doing what is right, according to God's eyes. But so often we fall into the trap of idolatry and worship the good, or even the great, instead of the God. See, the enemy, and the workers of the enemy more precisely, aka the demons, love to play these tricks, love to throw in these subtleties. It's not as obvious as the cartoons that you see with the bad guy, the devil, like in animated cartoons or childhood cartoons as you grow up, ooh, evil, bad, clearly wrong. That's not how the lowercase g God of this world works. The lowercase g God of this world, aka Satan, works in very deceptive ways. That's why he appears as an angel of light, even though he is of darkness. That is why he can appear as a roaring lion to imitate the lion of Judah, who is God. But this lowercase l lion is not of the kingdom. It is extremely subtle. Were it not for God's grace, everyone would fall for it eternally. So with this context in mind of the devil and the demons who work for the devil, with these subtleties in attacks thrown against us, we can now turn back to this issue. What do we worship? Because it is who or what we worship that we derive fulfillment from. If we worship someone or something who is finite and limited, no matter how good or great they are, it will not bring us fulfillment. It can't. It's not logically possible to worship someone or something that is mortal, that is finite, that is a created thing, not the creator. It is difficult to put this into practice, but we must acknowledge the reality. If we do not acknowledge the reality, then we will delude ourselves into thinking that idolatry is acceptable and that idolatry can be satisfactory. It can never fully satisfy. It's an interesting thing I've heard when I was growing up. God must be the first thing, your first priority, the first one, more precisely, not thing, one, in your life. And I always thought, okay, well that makes sense. God has to be number one. And then so-and-so can be two, this can be three, four, five, six, etc. But that perspective was challenged when I heard another quote, don't remember from who exactly, but the quote goes as follows, no, no, it's incorrect to say that God is number one because that means there's some idolatrous thing that is second, that is close to God. How is that acceptable, to put a created thing even on a level that is just slightly inferior to God? How preposterous is that? Instead, God must be the only one in your life. I'll say that again, not number one priority, the only priority in your life. And if that's the case, then the rest naturally follows. Because we do anything and everything for the glory of God, we love God first and foremost, and then we love our neighbors as ourselves, secondly, and those two cover all the law and the prophets. But you might be saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense, how can I only have God as a priority in my life and nothing else? That's too high a standard, that's perfection, I'm not perfect, I can't reach that mark, this is preposterous. Well, you'd be right that you can't reach that mark on your own, but let's not misinterpret what I'm saying here. I'm not saying that you need to become like a hermit or a monk and go into Mount Athos in Greece or some other hermit place to spend the rest of your days in isolation, in solitude. I'm not saying that. But what I am saying is that when God is your first priority, everything else gets put in perspective and thus you can find fulfillment in what you do. See, the things we do that are not explicitly linked to the gospel don't have to be empty, they don't have to be something that is fleeting. When we have that proper perspective that what we are doing, what we are enjoying, all that we say, do, and think is for the glory of God, then even the mundane things become fulfilling. Even the regular chores we do around the house become fulfilling. The mundane work tasks we have to do become fulfilling. The things we enjoy for fun, the things we like to do become even more fulfilling than they already are because we know what we are doing these things for, not for our own vainglory, not to win the approval from others, but for the glory of God alone. The tricky part is not to understand this, it's to put it into practice. And that, of course, is something I have to admit, is not something I do all the time even though I wish it was, to only put God as my only priority. Something I aim for, and something I hope to eventually achieve through sanctification because it's not me doing the change, it's God working in me to achieve it. But that's something that I know I can't do on my own. Let's face it, the world has an infinite number of distractions and an infinite number of ways you can approach the good that God has planned and created and twist it and make it into such a way that it becomes unfulfilling or even sinful. Again that's how the enemy works, that's how the enemy can turn things that should be fulfilling into things that leave us empty, things that make us feel incomplete. See, the enemy would love for us to feel miserable all the time, he doesn't want us to have any good things because all good things come from God. But having said that, the enemy will settle for having us to feel good and temporarily happy. If in the end those quote-unquote good and happy things end quote, make us grow further away from God, if we feel arrogance in our own successes and boast in our own manner instead of giving glory to the one who has given us the ability to succeed, then that will grow to vanity and that will grow to discontentment. It's just the natural end outcome of those decisions. If we are not careful with how we view things, we can turn good things from God into idolatry. Putting those as our priority, that's the reason why I live. Now that sounds extreme, but let me rephrase that. Oh man, if I can just get through work, then I can play that game. I really want to play that game. It's so popular, it's so fun, all my friends play it. I have no friends, but I want to play it anyway. It's like however you want to phrase it. Your motivation is to play the game. That becomes your all-in-all and end-all. To do work to play the game. Nothing wrong with playing games, but it can't be your end-all and it can't be your everything. It can't be your highest priority either. It doesn't have to be games. Again, you can substitute what it is. I want to watch my favorite sports team. In this case, the Dallas sports team will lose, but still, I want to watch them play. I'm looking forward to this huge game that's coming up. Oh man, I hope the Rangers can win that World Series game. Oh wow, they actually won the game. I'm so excited as you go and turn off your video game console of MLB The Show. But regardless, you are looking forward to play that game more than you're looking forward to spending time with God. That's a perspective check. Again, it doesn't have to be games. It doesn't have to be something you're not interested in. It's something you are interested in. Maybe you're looking for some sort of promotion, as I said earlier. Maybe you're looking for some sort of accomplishment, some sort of fitness goal, some sort of routine, some sort of thing that you want. Maybe you're looking to get into a relationship. Maybe you're looking to get on one knee and make a proposal. Maybe you're looking forward to do something that's very good, something that is pleasing to God, something that is praiseworthy and honorable. But you make that the number one thing in your life instead of God. And then there's issues. Because even your spouse will let you down. Even your role models will disappoint you. Even your family members and your friends, even your closest friends may one day make you feel disappointed with them. It's what happens when we put disproportionate expectations and priorities to created things and created beings instead of the Creator. Because the Creator never disappoints. The Creator never abandons you, never backstabs you, never sins against you, never does any of these things. So created people, created beings, might. Is that something you're willing to place your full expectations on? Your full hope on? I don't think so. But yet we do it. Isn't that interesting how things work? Again, talking a little earlier about distractions and things that get in the way of putting God as top priority. We may look in the Old Testament and we may laugh and we may mock the Israelites for getting into this seemingly absurd cycle. How could they? How could they? They saw God's miracles. They literally saw the bread, aka the manna, and the quail rain from heaven. They saw the water's part for them to escape. They saw how God answered the righteous prayers of the judge or the king and delivered Israel from her enemies. They saw that. And they still did not obey God's commandments. And thus God punished them. And we think, oh wow, those Israelites, they're so terrible. How could they do that when they saw God do these incredible things? And yet they bow down to statues. How silly is that? But God forgives them and they sin again. And God punishes them, they repent, God forgives them again. The cycle continues for hundreds of years in the Old Testament. But before we point the finger at the Israelites, you may know where I'm going with this already, we gotta look at ourselves in the mirror and think, wow, maybe I am like the Israelites. Maybe even worse than the Old Testament Israelites. See, it's not the statue that we worship as idols. It's the insert good thing here, the tangible, or maybe not tangible, but not a physical object, but the interests we prioritize, we prioritize above God. And I wonder why we're not fulfilled when we do these things. Because again, as stated earlier, and repeated, because repetition is important, these created things are finite, they are fleeting, and they do not, in any way, shape, or form, provide eternal, everlasting satisfaction, joy, and fulfillment. So when we mix up the order of putting God as our only priority, or putting other stuff as our priority, because if God is our priority, He is pleased, and we can live our lives with that perspective, which leads to fulfillment, even in those finite things. Because again, why do we do what we do? For the glory of God. Why does the man with the ten talents get more in the end? So the man had, I believe, five or ten talents? I may be mixing up the exact number, but the point is, in the New Testament, Jesus talks about the parable of the talents. He gives three people a different number of talents. To one, I believe he gives five. Maybe it's ten, but he gives the most. That's the important part. The second person gets, I believe, two or three, something like that, the second most. And finally, the third person gets one talent, or the least amount of talents. So again, five, two, and one. But the important part is one got the most, one got the second most, one got the least. If you don't know how the parable goes, the one with the five talents invested the five, and he ended up with ten. The one with the two invested the two, ended up with four. The one with the one got scared of his master, buried his talents in the ground, being lazy and flawful. And then he got it out and dug it up later when the master returned, and he was stuck with one. So what did the master say to those three people? Well, to the one with ten, he was pleased. He said, well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of thy lord. What did the master say to the one with two talents, who ended up with four? He said the same thing, well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of thy lord, slash master. And what did the master say to the one who had just one talent, and did not produce more? He told him that he was a wicked and slothful servant. And he knew that the master reaped where he had not sown, and gathered where he scattered no seed. He should have at least invested the money with the bankers, and could have gotten interest with what he originally had. But this is the part I want to emphasize here. This is found in Matthew 25, verse 28. So the master says a very interesting quote. He says, so take the talent from him, a.k.a. the one who had one talent, and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29, verse 29, for to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And in the end, the quote, worthless servant, is cast out into the outer darkness where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth, while the one with ten talents now has more. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. But whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. That's found in Matthew chapter 13, verse 12. It's interesting how the verses kind of connect. Again, he's also talking about a parable in this passage, and the context of that was after the parable of the sower in Matthew 13, but we can see as well in Matthew 25, the same concept applies. The one who had more, excuse me, much, more was given to him. And so when we view our lives with the proper perspective, from God's perspective, we're blessed with more. We get fulfillment in the things we do, even the things that are not explicitly related to ministry or church or whatever, as long as we have that perspective that it's for God's glory. We get that fulfillment and satisfaction. We get even more than what we deserve. So for those who don't view it from God's perspective and indulge in idolatry, then they miss out, not just on God's blessings, but also on the fulfillment of those temporary blessings that they thought they were going to get. Because if they had viewed it from God's perspective, perhaps they would make different decisions that would lead to a better outcome. And even if the outcome was a poor one, they would still be more rich than the ones who viewed it from an idolatrous perspective. So this is challenging stuff because this goes against what we view as our nature for what we want to do. We want to view things as reward for our labor and fulfillment for our labor, but if we view it like that, instead of viewing all good things from God, then we won't feel satisfied. It just won't happen. I've lived my life trying to counter this, whether I wanted to or not. A lot of times, that's what it feels like. And the same lesson applies over and over again. It doesn't matter how good I felt in the moment when engaging in these quote-unquote satisfying hobbies, pursuits, games, or following sports, or whatever hobbies, movies, whatever. They don't provide fulfillment or satisfaction when just viewed from that perspective. If they did, I would have known by now. That's for sure. But viewing it from God's perspective, you realize, wow, okay, I'm watching this movie with brothers and sisters in Christ, and I can enjoy what someone has worked hard for and enjoy this movie and view it with the lens of the gospel and see, okay, here are some themes the movie has which glorifies God or reflects God's character. Here are some things that don't. And here's how we can discuss this with our other brothers and sisters in Christ and figure out, okay, what are some portions of this movie we can apply to our lives and what's something we don't? Or what's something we can just enjoy as we grow to know our brothers and sisters in Christ, even if it's not related to the content of the film? It's that perspective that gives us that contentment. It doesn't have to be just movies, but it doesn't have to be just with believers either. It could be with nonbelievers as we hang out with them and do these activities. It's fun, and we enjoy them for sure, but we also realize the sobering perspective that nonbelievers do not have eternal life, that they need to accept the gospel. They need to accept it. It's not a want, it's a need. We understand that, so thus maybe we pray for them more because we hang out with them instead of less as we grow to love one another as a result of God's commandment to love him first and foremost and others as ourselves. We engage in acts of service for them in genuine love for these people, believers or nonbelievers, not to gain brownie points for heaven or to check off a mandate, but because we genuinely want to because the Holy Spirit is transforming us to be more like Christ. And the root of that comes from the godly perspective that we see here. The perspective that puts God as the priority in our lives. What a shame that so often we can miss God's blessings or miss fulfillment because we fall into the easy trap of idolatry. It's so easy to fall into it. It is not easy to follow Christ. It may be quote-unquote easy to accept his free gifts of salvation, but anyone who tells you that the Christian walk is an easy walk is deluding themselves and misleading you as well. It is not easy to be a Christian, even in a place with religious freedom like the United States, even in this country, where we do not face persecution. There are still temptations. There are still things we want to do that the flesh wants to engage in that we must restrain ourselves with. And we can't do that perfectly without the Holy Spirit. We can't even do it all the time or most of the time without the Holy Spirit. We're so weak and we need God's help and we need the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin, righteousness, and judgment so often, but yet God doesn't abandon us and he gives us more chances to trust and obey him. And we see from this godly perspective the enormous magnitude of his grace and mercy that he shows to us every single day. The air you breathe, the heart that beats within you, the health you take for granted, the food you consume and enjoy, the blessings God has given to you, much more than what I've listed, that can be so easily forgotten about when idolatry takes place or when we forget about God's perspective and his role in our lives. That's how you can become miserable quickly, to forget God's blessings and dwell only on what you want more. Oh, I wish I had these blessings instead. Oh God, you bless so-and-so with all these things, how come you don't bless me with these things? Huh? I've served you for X amount of time, I've obeyed you for Y amount of months, so why don't you give me these things? It's a selfish perspective. We don't know what other people are going through. We don't know why God chose to bless so-and-so. Perhaps they did more things than you did, in acts of good works and faithfulness. Maybe they didn't, but God chose to bless them anyways because he can, and that's just how it goes. Maybe he wants to bless you with something else later, but because you're so focused on jealousy, you miss it. Maybe he's not going to bless you with more in this life, but he'll bless you in the next, but you don't see it because your perspective is twisted, because it's so short-sighted, because it's so based on the temporal world and what you can see in front of you, and the daily dramas of the earth, that you fail to miss the, excuse me, that you fail to see the eternal perspective of God. If it sounds like I'm angry talking about that, because I know I'm talking to myself, as well as to maybe others, but definitely to myself. It's so easy to just forget God's goodness, forget how much he's blessed us with. When we realize how fortunate we are, or in more precise terms, how blessed we are by God, then we become less miserable and thus more fulfilled. We may think that we will have what we have now forever, but that is a lie. It's a lie. Any day, God, in his sovereign will, just like he did to Job, can choose to take it all away. It's a scary thought, but it's not something that you can guarantee he won't do. He may call a family member home sooner than you expect. He may take away your material blessings. Maybe there's an earthquake. Maybe there's a tsunami. Maybe there's a hurricane. Maybe there's a tornado or some other natural disaster. You can't guarantee that won't happen. Maybe there's some other crisis that's going on in the world. We saw before COVID in 2019, we saw how the world changed in the span of a few months. We don't know whether the world will change again like that in our lifetimes. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but that's not the point. The point is, there's no guarantees in life for these matters. The guarantee is for our eternal life and security in Christ. That does not extend to temporal life guarantees of blessings. He can take it away because he is God and he makes those decisions. Even though we may view it unjust and unfair. Even though we may have a legitimate grievance against God for why he would do these things to us, just as Job did. But yet in the first chapters of Job, instead of sinning by cursing God, Job worshipped God. Isn't that incredible? Of course he has a dialogue with his three friends and he does end up being confronted by God at the end of Job, but at the end, Job keeps his life and he gets restored more than what he had before. But it's not like he passed the test or anything, it's not like he got rewarded with multiple more things than before. That's just God's will for his life. He ended up getting more, but it wasn't a reward, that's just how it went. And those are tough questions and tough topics to think about. Why would God do that to him in the first place? Why would he allow Satan to do that to Job? The book of Job does not give us such a satisfactory answer to that. But to test Job, sure, but does that mean God could test us with that? See, we may be quick to say Job is an ideal person in the Bible and that he shouldn't have complained maybe to God or questioned that he should have been born or not in the middle of chapters of Job, but if it happened to you, would you not do the same? You may say you won't, but that's because you never experienced it. When push comes to shove, when all that you have gets taken away, will you still worship? Will you still find fulfillment in life? Will you still think that God is good? And of course these are tough questions, and of course these are hard and difficult matters. But at the end of the day, your foundation, if it's in God, will withstand the storms of life, no matter how insignificant, no matter how extreme, if the perspective is rooted in Jesus Christ, then you will ride the storm. So as we start to wrap things up today, again, thank you for listening. Today is September 7th, 2022. This was the first episode I've recorded after making this podcast public. I started recording this like in the beginning part of the year, but it took me around eight to nine months to finally publish it, so sometimes you just have to do it. The work won't do it for itself. You have to put in your own effort, and you have to realize what you're doing it for. I hope to do this for the glory of God. That's the point. This isn't for money, this isn't for any secondary reason. It's for God's glory. If He is glorified, then it's great. If I wanted to do those other means, then there are other podcast ideas or subject matters for that. It doesn't have to be this. But at the end of the day, you have to know your expectations in embarking upon a pursuit or an achievement or a goal, and you must make sure that, at the end, it's for God's glory. You work hard to accomplish things that may or may not last forever, but you do know that if you're doing it for God's glory, then you can be content regardless of the outcome. Regardless of whether it goes the way you want it to go. Regardless of how it all ends up. You know you're in the loving arms of God. And so I hope, I really do hope, that now that you listen to this, that it causes you to think. Only in God's miraculous will would it cause you to change immediately and transform your thinking. That's only through God's will and the Holy Spirit working in your life. I can't do that. As you can see, I'm kind of all over the place tonight. But what I do hope, if the Lord is willing, that this does cause you to reevaluate your perspective on things and to really view, in your life, what truly brings you fulfillment. Is it really the object that God has created or the person whom God has created? Or is it the creator? Is your fulfillment in something that may let you down, something that may perish in the short or long term run? Or is it in the one who never will perish, whose words will never pass away? I can't answer that question for you. I can only answer those questions for myself. As we approach the beginnings of fall, and as the winter season sets in, and it will soon be Halloween, and it will soon be the holidays after that, we may look forward to them, but it's also a challenge for us. Will we view those holidays as the end all? Oh, now we gotta apply it. We might have been saying to ourselves, okay, well, you know, sure, I'll view things with God's perspective only. But then when we throw a practical example, we can easily just invert back to our original stance on things, such as the holidays, such as a vacation, such as an accomplishment or goal. Again, do not let good take the place of God. And these things may take time. Again, sanctification, the Holy Spirit working within us to make us grow closer to God every single day. It's a process with highs and lows. A process is something that takes time by definition. Don't be discouraged and don't lose heart if you don't see immediate change. Continue praying, asking God to mold your perspective into His. Ask Him to guide your life into matters which are truly fulfilling, matters which will truly be satisfying, not just in the short term, not just in the long term, but for all eternity. Choose your investments wisely, investments of time. Choose them very carefully. Where your treasure is, your heart will be also. So be very careful where you choose to invest your treasure. Finally, I think I've talked about this fulfillment topic enough for tonight. I just want to say thank you. I just want to say thank you for listening. Thank you for listening to the podcast and just going through these discussions over these issues. I do want to say that if you're feeling discouraged, if you think that you will not reach God's standard for your life or that you're making some progress but it's never enough, I want to encourage you, continue to trust in Him and don't compare yourself to other people's quote-unquote progress. You may see other people either show off or you may just see it in general, how they may be doing great things for God's glory and it's great. You should rejoice in that because again, in the church, when one person rejoices, everyone rejoices. When one person suffers, everyone is in sorrow and rejoice for them and give thanks to God for them. By the end of the day, their stage of their Christian walk is not yours. You're exactly where you need to be because God has not abandoned you, He's not given up on you, He has not thrown in the towel on you. The Holy Spirit, Lord willing, is not quenched within you. It's still aflame, it's still burning. Don't quench the Holy Spirit. Continue to trust God. Continue to realize and trust that He has placed you in your position, in your role for His glory and that even through your setbacks and mistakes and blunders and even through your sins, He hasn't abandoned you. You can always confess to God your sins. You can always ask for a clean slate. He always grants it, always. If you're genuine in your request and the Lord knows the heart, true repentance, He will surely forgive. So don't lose heart. Don't feel discouraged. Don't feel condemned by the demons of the devil. Be vigilant in this spiritual war. Maybe that's a topic for another day, but be vigilant. Don't be surprised if you switch your perspective to God's perspective that you get attacked one way or another. I can't say how or specifically, but just don't be surprised if setbacks occur. It's not something that would be too surprising, but take heart throughout any setback or any trial or difficulty. Take heart. Why should you take heart? Because Jesus Christ has overcome the world and anything that the enemy can throw at you. So place your trust in Him. Trust Him more. Trust Him even more closely than before. Even if you don't feel it, even if you don't understand it fully, trust. Trust in God. Ask questions if you have doubts, but don't keep it to yourself. If you keep it to yourself, people can't help you. When you bring it up to others in the church, in the community of God, people can help you. Guide you through doubts. Guide you through the feeling of lack of fulfillment. Guide you through your feeling of, I'm feeling fulfilled and I don't put God as my priority, so what gives? Guide you through those questions. Guide you through quote-unquote easy questions, through difficult questions, through any of those questions. Don't lose heart. Don't think that you know more than you actually do, either. Again, it's both sides of the coin. But God loves you regardless, and I really do hope that as you live your life, you will experience true fulfillment through Jesus Christ, forever and ever. Amen.