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Chinese has an old saying, “Compare yourself with others would exasperate yourself greatly人比人氣死人.” This implies that we tend to use external material things such as wealth, position and fame to define / measure a person. As a result, we were exasperated because there is always someone has better wealth or position or fame than us.

There was a conversation between a senior monk and a junior monk when they saw a large crowd of people enter into their temple to worship. The senior monk asked the junior, “How many people do you see?” The junior tried very hard to count them but fail in his attempt. The senior monk then said, “It is no need to count them. There are only TWO people. One is fame (名) and the other is profit (利) ” This is an interesting yet insightful observation for our life in this world. You may argue that there is nothing wrong with rich and famous. I agree with you. The question is do you compare with other rich and famous constantly? And, most importantly, do you think rich and famous are the best things in your life?

We were allowed to have “one” life in this world, as Bible told us. How to live a life that is worthy in God’s eye is depending upon how we view what are the best things in our life. A few years back, Rick Warren wrote a series of popular books. One of them is called “Purpose driven life”.  He said that the first purpose of our life is to worship God because we were planned for His pleasure. The second purpose of our life is to have a real fellowship with our brothers and sisters in God’s family. If purposes of life are to worship God and to fellowship within God’s family, then worshiping Him and fellowship with others should be the best things in our life.

Our human limitation, however, is that we need to hold something “tangible” in our hands in order to prove that we have possessed them. Hence, it is hard for us to visualize something, which is intangible, in our hearts. David C. McCasland, author of “Pure God”, once wrote in RBC devotional, “The best things in life are the eternal riches that come from God’s goodness and grace in Jesus Christ. We do not hold them in our hands, but in our hearts. 人生最美好的事就是擁有來自上帝的慈愛與基督的恩典，這是一份永恆的財寶，不是握在我們手中，乃存在於我們的心裡。”  It is an enlightening remark.  David hints us that the best things in life are to have God’s richness and goodness. And, use our hearts to receive God’s grace and to experience His goodness proves to be even more important than anything in our hands.

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, can we do a reality check about ourselves? “What are the best things in our life?” Hope your answer is God, Himself. Let’s us not to set our eyes on that which is “temporary” but on that is “eternal”. May God remind us constantly!