day no. 15,485: initiative or initiation?

"Once we are self-aware, we must choose purposes and principles to live by; otherwise the vacuum will be filled, and we will lose our self-awareness and become like groveling animals who live primarily for survival and propagation. People who exist on that level aren't living; they are, "being lived." -- Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

The apostle Paul charges Christians to put off sin and put on righteousness (Eph 4, Col 3) and Jesus Himself said that a clean, empty house is not necessarily an improvement on a dirty, occupied house. spiritually speaking (Lk 11:25). There is no such thing as having no purpose. If you don't proactively initiate, you will reactively be initiated. As C.S. Lewis points out in The Abolition of Man,

"Man’s conquest of Nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature’s conquest of Man. Every victory we seemed to win has led us, step by step, to this conclusion. All Nature’s apparent reverses have been but tactical withdrawals. We thought we were beating her back when she was luring us on. What looked to us like hands held up in surrender was really the opening of arms to enfold us for ever."

Life does not happen to the man of God; the man of God happens to life.