hebrews in egypt

tim brought up this point today - that just like how the hebrews worked so hard as slaves to the eqyptian system in exodus 1, we work hard as slaves in this system of creating our own empires. the hebrew slaves were fed by the egyptians, we are satisfied by our material comforts.



we define success as achieving our goals. "oh yes! i reached my goal! i succeeded!"



and now i ask myself, if my goal is to obey God, then success is definitely in my hands because the ball's in my court. would i find satisfaction in obeying God? i would reckon so. whereas if my goal is to raise good children, i wouldn't know if i would succeed or not. if my goal is to study hard and do my best, i would be able to succeed, but i may not be satisfied.



actually, many people are happy to just earn an average income and live an average life. you can buy almost anything you want (you don't ask for very much, maybe an i-phone and possibly a 42inch plasma tv).



i think right now i'm in that middle class bracket where i live comfortably, though not extravagantly. i just dont want to be here the rest of my life. i wanna be out there in the world, bringing more meaning to things.



gah. this all sounds so "out there" and "blurry" with no solid plans or the slightest hint of practicality at all. what's obeying God? what's bringing meaning to things?



well, at least i know what i don't want. i'll figure out what i want along the way.



i definitely wanna bring meaning into studying my debits and credits, or math, or geography etc. otherwise it'd just be me competing with a bunch of other people for a top grade, or a scholarship. then i'll do someting else and find myself in another race to the top end of the bell curve so that i can get to the top firms. and all this may not even mean anything to me at the end of the day, cept for the fact that i may then be able to afford a car, then a house, then a suround sound then a cellar full of wine then a walk in wardrobe etc.



(and all this while there are other people in our country who struggle to give their children enough pocket money, or who have not enough to wear in winter..)



society never used to be like this, right? the rich who owned plantations and had workers would tell their workers not to collect ever single bit of grain, not to go through the fields a second time, but to leave whatever they may have left out for the needy to glean so that the poor would too be fed. i think it's mentioned somewhere in deuteronomy. (i learnt about it on thursday when we read the book of ruth)