Commentary (Cont’d)

Thirdly, because freedom is a created reality, it has a purpose.  Using it for any other reason, damages it, just like if you use a biro for anything else other than what it was made for, you damage it.  For example, if you were to use the biro to dig a hole to play marbles.  You can actually succeed in digging the hole.  But the nib of the biro will probably be done in for.  So too, with you and your freedom.  You can use it for whatever other “purpose” you’ve insisted on, and you may even “succeed” in it, but your freedom will itself end up damaged. And to make things worse, with your biro damaged, even when you later decide to use it for what it is made for, it will not function properly – it will not write.  So too with freedom: even if you later decided to use it for what it is made for, it will not function properly – you will not be able to love.  If you find this hard to believe, ask anyone you know who’s seriously struggled, for example, with porn, wanking or fornication (something that sex and your sexual virility is not made for) and then got married and was now trying to have a healthy marriage and a healthy martial sex-life.

As you can see, the topic of your vocation in it’s extremely rich totality (i.e. covering your talents and skills, your profession, your mission and your spiritual life) can go very deep.  Further, it touches on those core fibres of your manhood and manliness: your identity, your fulfillment, your happiness, your usefulness, your freedom and so on.

I conclude today’s post borrowing from a preliminary remark that Jordan Peterson made, after he was queried on his thoughts on the Resurrection of Christ.

Short Exercise 47

Read the quotation in the Annex below.

Conclusion

Your vocation, especially your spiritual vocation, is not something that will drop into your laps from the heavens.  Borrowing from Peterson, there is a certain sense in which you have to wrestle it from God.  For two reasons:

  1. He needs to see how much you freely want it.
  2. The wrestling, prepares you for that same vocation.  The wrestling tones your spiritual muscles thus enabling you to carry the vocation well.

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