Our Life’s Assignment

Emmet Fox (1886-1851) was an Irish émigré with the gift of the gab, as they say. A wonderful, spiritual man and a fine preacher, he regularly addressed audiences of over 5,000 in New York.

I often quote some of his beautiful, healing words about love from Sermon On The Mount.

In one of Fox’s books (Make Your Life Worthwhile, 1942) I found a grand little piece entitled Our Life’s Assignment and I have adapted it here, for my forthcoming book BOOM!

There are certain key tasks in which we may attain at least some degree of mastery in this life, says Fox. Otherwise, we are wasting our precious time on Earth. They are:

  1. A duty to know and understand our conscious nature and expand our Being and awareness (finding God as he put it).
  2. Healing and regenerating our own bodies—demonstrating health.
  3. Getting control of ourselves and finding our True Place.
  4. Learning to handle other people both wisely and justly.
  5. Perfecting a technique for getting direct personal inspiration for a general or a specific purpose.
  6. Letting go of the past completely.
  7. Planning the future definitely and intelligently.

To Fox, if we attained even a working ability in these 7 zones, we were successful. It didn’t take mastery on each, just effective action. Moreover, we don’t need to be brilliant on all of them but we must act on each and every assignment. To do less was to be unbalanced. Continue reading