The deepest reward is not always what you receive after finishing something. Sometimes it is who you discover yourself to be while doing it.
Everything runs in cycles—or seasons, if you will.
There is a time for everything, including the very moment you are in now.
We commonly describe these cycles as beginnings and endings, starts and finishes. Our efforts can be especially rewarding when they run their proper course.
Where trouble begins is when important cycles remain unfinished and continue occupying space within us.
Unfinished responsibilities can become weights of a sort.
THE PAY-OFF
The inner drive that leads us toward purpose—and the satisfaction that comes from completing a meaningful task—is one of life’s great rewards.
Our efforts, fueled by belief and directed through action, can deliver an intended result.
We are then paid for our involvement with the true coin of this realm:
Having and being part of a genuine purpose.
Not every reward is money.
Some rewards arrive as peace, usefulness, growth, contribution and the knowledge that something important now exists because you participated.
LET’S EAT!
The little starts and finishes introduced to us each day are like tasty crumbs and tender morsels—the snack food of life.
Make the bed.
Return the call.
Keep the appointment.
Finish the repair.
Help someone complete a task.
These smaller completions feed momentum.
Larger accomplishments can produce deeper and more purposeful returns, especially when those accomplishments include, serve or uplift other people.
WE HAVE HIS ATTRIBUTES
Through faith, we can glimpse something of what God receives from HIS works.
HE brings things into being, sustains them and beholds the result.
There is work—and there is delight in what has been made.
We were created with the ability to imagine, begin, develop and complete. When used for good, these abilities reflect something of our CREATOR’S nature.
HE LIKES TO BEHOLD YOU
One of HIS pleasures is seeing you use what you have been given.
Your efforts are possible because of gifts, opportunities, relationships and resources that did not originate entirely with you.
This creates an intimate and ongoing relationship between the GIVER and the receiver.
Identity and purpose meet when your inner gifts become outward service.
The reward feeds the core.
IN THE BEGINNING
The Bible introduces this principle in Genesis.
God creates, beholds what has been made and recognizes the good within it. One stage is completed, and another begins.
There is order.
There is progression.
There is a start-and-finish dynamic.
THINK:
Like Father, like child.
UNFOLDING OF IT ALL
The process continues until the work reaches its intended fulfillment.
In our smaller human way, we can experience something similar.
We use what we have, take responsible action and then behold the outcome.
The satisfaction is not merely in owning the result.
It is in knowing that something inside you was activated and allowed to become useful.
MUST USE
When you activate your gifts, talents, abilities and skills, a deeper and more satisfying existence can become available.
That is what these resources were designed to do:
Function.
Your assigned skills bank often rewards you as you use it. Motivation can begin coming alive while the work is being performed.
But inability to act is not automatically laziness or spiritual failure. Depression, illness, exhaustion, disability, grief and overwhelming circumstances can interfere with activation.
Sometimes the next act of purpose is asking for help, receiving care or resting long enough to begin again.
THE “ON” SWITCH
Every human being carries some combination of gifts, capacities and potential.
When these remain dormant, we may experience an ache or a void asking to be addressed.
We may substitute repeated short-term pleasures that distract us without producing lasting fulfillment.
Pleasure is not wrong.
Rest and recreation are necessary.
The problem begins when distraction becomes a substitute for identity and keeps us from using what has been entrusted to us.
Eventually, the inner self asks:
“When are you going to turn me ON?”
YOU PAY IN
When purpose remains continually neglected, the substitutes may demand increasing maintenance.
More stimulation.
More distraction.
More approval.
More possessions.
What first appeared to provide relief can become a kind of bondage—requiring us to keep paying in without delivering the deeper payoff we were seeking.
That is the wrong direction.
INTIMACY ON HIGH
We are self-contained motion machines, wonderfully suited for our life here on Earth.
But merely being present is not the full experience.
Our involvement matters.
When we return something useful from what we have received, an intended intimacy forms between the CREATOR, the creation and the purpose being served.
The gift completes part of its cycle when it is used.
CONFLICT SPEAKS
When something meaningful within us remains repeatedly ignored, conflict may begin speaking.
We can feel disconnected from identity and purpose—unfinished in some important way.
But conflict should be interpreted carefully.
Not every uncomfortable feeling is a divine instruction, and not every abandoned project should be revived. Some goals were never ours. Some seasons genuinely end.
Ask:
Is this an important assignment I am avoiding—or a burden I am permitted to release?
JUDGE FOR YOURSELF
Thinking can help us make wise decisions.
The problem begins when thought becomes willful, selfish or vain—when we analyze endlessly to avoid the simple action already waiting before us.
Vanity can make us ask how the work will make us look.
Purpose asks whom the work will serve.
Judge the result for yourself.
If your present direction repeatedly produces emptiness, conflict and false substitutes, a course correction may be necessary.
USE WHILE YOU CAN
We have the ability to stop pursuing what does not work and begin pursuing what does.
It is never too late to request help or make a fresh beginning while life and opportunity remain.
These are marvelous and generous attributes:
Learning.
Changing.
Beginning again.
But possibility must eventually be activated before it can produce a result.
ACTIVATE AND BEGIN
Life contains both circumstances we choose and events we never requested.
Not everything that happens is easy, fair or understandable.
Still, opportunities to use our core gifts can appear in both the small life picture and the grand one.
Resistance will test your resolve.
Let it reveal whether the work truly matters.
Then begin with what you have, from where you are.
TIME IS FOR THIS PURPOSE
This short period we call life was not given only to see how much we can eat, drink, make merry or gather unto ourselves.
Enjoyment has its rightful place.
But there is more.
We are invited to become familiar with the CREATOR, HIS purposes and the part we can play in returning something meaningful from what has been placed within us.
We are the investment.
A life activated for good becomes part of the payoff.
TRAVEL WELL
Give, and something begins moving outward.
Seek, and you begin discovering.
Activate what has been placed within you and begin solving the riddle of you.
The payoff may exceed what your thoughts, emotions or five senses can measure.
Travel well.
FINAL THOUGHT
Completion is not about finishing everything.
It is about recognizing what truly matters, completing what remains yours to do and wisely releasing what no longer belongs to your season.
Turn on what has been waiting within you.
PEARLS INSIGHT (SEO)
Using personal gifts and completing meaningful goals can strengthen motivation, identity, spiritual fulfillment and life purpose. Sustainable progress begins by choosing one worthwhile task, taking a manageable step and seeking help when health or difficult circumstances interfere.
PEARLS FROM THE BOOKS
Your gifts do not become smaller when they are used. They become visible.
Potential waits quietly inside, but purpose appears when the inner gift is placed into motion.
PEARLS CONNECTION
Choose one unfinished task that continues occupying space within you.
Decide whether it should be:
Completed.
Delegated.
Rescheduled.
Or responsibly released.
If it still matters, identify the smallest action that will move it forward—and activate your ON switch.
RICHIE SPEAKS
Your skills bank was not assigned merely for safekeeping.
Use it.
Let the little completions become tasty crumbs. Let the greater accomplishments become the full meal of purpose.
FINAL SAY
Activate what is within you.
Complete what matters.
Release what does not.
Give back from what you have been given—and travel well.
— Richie
Pearls for the Soul
when you feed the soul, you feed everything.
Website: https://pearlsforthesoul.com
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