Simple plan

You can do hard things for God

When I learned actor Heath Ledger died this past January I was taken aback. I always am when someone so young and with seemingly so much to live for dies an untimely death.

Ledger seemed to have it all. He was climbing toward — or trying hard to elude — stardom, had millions of dollars at his disposal, was practicing his craft, and was famous. That’s a good life — in worldly terms.

But for Ledger, his death voided all the aforementioned measures of success.

And that’s the sad reality. Success only has currency for the person who possesses it while the person is alive. As it says in Ecclesiastes 1:14, “I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind” (NIV).

How many of us spend countless hours trying to scratch and claw our way out of our average existences for some level of stardom, cash, fame and admiration?

For that matter, how many of us toil endlessly to live just a little better than our peers?

What a waste. There is more to live for.

I believe that more to live for begins with following Christ; then loving one’s family, friends and neighbors as Christ would; then living life for all it’s worth every single day.

Doing so is not always easy. In fact, it can be hard. But as the old saying goes, nothing worth having comes easily.

Kirk Noonan

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Visit Kirk’s blog at www.knoonan.agblogger.org.