REALIZATION


Good guys finish last.  Tim Tebow and Tony Dungee are the exceptions rather than the rule.  What kind of world rewards people that use, hurt and then discard people?  Our world does.  Unless you are exceptionally gifted, prepare to live a life of hardship, persecution and poverty if you try to do the Right Thing.  


Nearly ALL business is dependent on vice to make money.  Marketing is based on the desires to have more (greed) and to have what is not yours (lust).  Think about things you spend your money on.  How many of those products rely on scantily-clad women (real or images) to push their product?


What about the motivation to buy new things?  Do we really need what we buy or are we hoping to create or maintain an image/status?


Our desire to be excellent at a given activity is supposed to be based on the proper stewardship of our abilities to honor our Creator, not to gain popularity, assert our dominance or to "get stuff".  But that is what it has become.


My advice to everyone who is trying to do the right thing is to keep on doing the right thing.  There will probably not be any rewards in this life.  One could argue that telling the truth, spending quantity time with your kids, paying off your debts, and loving your spouse, for example, are rewards in themselves... and they are.  But people used to believe that adversity created character and that one day, we would all have to stand before our Creator with nothing but our character and deeds.