I'm reading C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity" for the first time.... L O V E  I T . So much I could write on and share about....so I would just encourage you to get a copy and read it yourself. Here though, is a paragraph that particularly stuck out for me....great to chew/reflect over: 

"We may, indeed, be sure that perfect <insert Christian virtue> will not be attained by any merely human efforts. You must ask for God's help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important <insert Christian virtue> may be, this process trains up in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and, on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection."

• The Fall of humankind has less to do with eating the forbidden fruit and more to do with our desire to be independent of God. And this independence from God is more to do with our desire to BE gods. But as soon as we've broken the untainted relationship with God, we feel shame and we are cursed. God never shames or curses us....we do it to ourselves. And we still do that to ourselves now.
• Related to our desire to be gods, is our fear of not having a legacy to leave behind....so we build towers and empires and steeples. Whether the ambition we have is a comfortable life or to accomplish new feats or to do something great for God...these very things (though it might be good or neutral in themselves) will become corrupt because we've touched it. And as it, instead of God, becomes our driving force or motivator, it will destroy us if not leave us to die an empty and unfulfilled shell.
• It's not as though we're to be ambitionless and passive mounds of carbon matter waiting for life to pass however...our purpose is to know God, His heart and be involved in His cosmic purposes. Our life fuel (as C.S. Lewis put it in "Mere Christianity") is God Himself....as opposed to things or positions or statuses. There is a lot of work behind restoring a broken world...but we don't do it FOR God as if He needs us...we have the privilege of being taught by Him how to do these things that bring meaning and purpose for our lives.
• And He purposes that all would come to be in restored relationship with Him, that all might be able to enjoy fully the Life they were created to live. Like John the Baptist who was not miffed when Jesus gained in popularity over his previously high profile ministry, we need to see that anything we are given to participate in is really about pointing people to know and love Jesus more....as opposed to know and love "me" more. The moment we get frustrated or jealous at another's success we'll know that it's become more about us than about God.
• All that we have been given is for us to give to others. To serve others. To minister to them. For if you use it solely for yourself, it will take hold of you and you will become under its control. If you have been given much, give much to others. If you have been given less, use that for others too. Wealth is not how much you have, but how little you need. Your gifts, talents, skills are not for you to perform better at work to get to a higher position or get that bonus, but to be used in a way that serves the people around you no matter where you find yourself....to point them to Christ -- that is the end goal....and everything else is just the means.