The Meaning of Life…

Have you ever taken the time to consider what “life” is all about?  So many opinions; a multitude of competing views; every kind of theory, idea, philosophy, tenet, and cliché all offering advice on what our lives should be and could be.  Thoughts range from the biological existence camp; those who have “scientifically” concluded that we are just a random form of higher animal species existing solely in accord with our built-in instincts and drives to the “spiritual” ideologists that claim we were always around in heaven waiting to be born, to live, then die and be born again into another form etc. etc. etc.  Then, there’s the negative camp that say how hard life is; it’s complicated, difficult, scary, it sucks, it’s a bitch and then you die!  (nice group?)  There’s karma that gets you if you got them and blesses you if you blessed them.  There’s religion that reports there is no evil and that all is good (though you are pretty sure there’s no good in what just happened) and there’s religion that claims that nothing is good, but all is evil and everything is sin and bad and wrath’s coming and you better get ready to meet your angry God!  So, how could you ever even fathom what life could be or should be with the great spaghetti bowl of ideas with which we are surrounded?  Your mom and dad learned this and taught you that.  Your dad couldn’t get a break (hmm what is a break exactly?) and your mom was born with a silver spoon in her mouth (hmm and what the heck is that?)  There are the “haves” and there are the “have-nots” and you are “fortunate” to be a member of the “have” club.  Lord, it’s no wonder people drink!  Lest I confuse you any further, why not indulge me and let me tell you a story.  You can decide if the story is true or not true, it is completely up to you.  So just sit on your blankey, relax and listen to my story…

Long. long, long ago there was a great spiritual being named God.  He had no beginning and has no ending.  (Caution: do not try to wrap your head around that one!)  He longed to have a relationship with someone wherein He could share His great love.  He could create anything He wanted and was unlimited in every way.  However, He did not want to create some robot beings that loved Him automatically.  He wanted to create human beings and then give them the power to decide by their own free-will whether they would believe in Him and whether they would love Him on their own.  Since He was a spiritual being He knew they would never find Him with their five-senses minds, so He decided to write them a Great Book and in that Book He would tell them Who He was and how to get to Him.  Oh, and He knew that one of the spirit beings He had created previously would oppose Him (by his own free-will) and become His great opponent and antagonist, yet He created him anyway as well, because after all, you can’t really have free-will if you only have one choice, right?  So, after having those that believed in Him write that Great Book, He also knew that His opponent would try his best to talk everyone out of believing in His Great Book.  His opponent was very wise and knew he could not dispute the truth of that Great Book, so he persuaded people to gnarl and twist the words of the Book.  He got them to invent new doctrines and new theories and ideas that directly opposed the words of that Great Book, and was able to make many, many, many people unhappy and miserable.  Many of them live that way up to this very day.

Despite the cunning wisdom of the opponent, God was always much wiser.  He knew He needed to get His Great Book back into the hearts of His people.  For He wanted them to know that He was the Author of life and that He invented life to be enjoyed to the fullest.  He was grieved in His heart though because He saw so many people suffering.  He didn’t want them to suffer and He knew that if they got back to Him He could restore their lives, if only they would believe Him.  Yet many did not believe Him and He wasn’t mad at them.  He knew that without His Great Book they would believe all kinds of things that aren’t true and after a while would get used to living that way.  He also knew that His opponent was always trying to separate them from Him and in their separation would afflict them with disease and death and misery and torture.

Yet God was still wiser than his opponent.  He knew that His opponent had so infiltrated the lives of His people with sin and error and wrong thinking, that He would need to do something for them that they could not do for themselves.  So, He came up with a brilliant plan.  He created soul-life in a woman that believed in Him fully and that life would have no sin or error born into him.  He called the man Jesus, for he would save God’s people from their sins.  He gave His man free-will, like all the rest, and let him choose whether or not he would believe Him fully and walk in all His ways.  This man Jesus was a special man.  He obeyed God like no-one else had ever done.  Then came the hardest part.  God asked His special man to be the payment for the errors of all His people and that payment would mean Jesus would have to die.  Well, since he always obeyed and believed God, like no-one else was able to do, He laid down his life by his own free-will and for that God exalted him above every name that was ever named.

When Jesus laid down his life for God’s people, the opponent thought he had finally defeated God once and for all.  Yet God was much wiser than His opponent.  Through the life of His special son, He could now restore the life of every person who wanted to believe.  He could release His people from the power of His opponent once and for all.  He could, if they would just believe in His Great Book, teach them about His power; His goodness; His love.  He could persuade them that He had the power to heal them from any sickness.  He could reveal to them the joy of living, the joy He had always intended for them.  He could help them to understand that fear did not come from Him and show them how to succeed in their every endeavor.  He could give them peace in their hearts, a peace that surpassed their understanding and that would guard them from every wrong.  He would show them that their lives had purpose, great purpose and that purpose was in fact the meaning of their lives!  This He would do because He loved them so; He had always loved them so…

He called His Great Book the Bible and despite His opponents attempts to discredit it; to make it sound weird and antiquated and foolish, He knew it would restore their lives unto them.  And He knew that when they would believe it, He could give them their hearts desires.  He could restore their connection to Him and make that connection permanent so that they would live forever with Him!  All this He did because He is love and could do nothing else!

That, my friends, is the meaning of life.  Life isn’t complicated, it is simple.  Error is complicated.  Life isn’t always easy for us because of the aforementioned opponent, but we can always win if we will just believe!  Oh I know the arguments…  “There are a million ways to get to Chicago and it doesn’t matter how you get to Chicago, as long as you get to Chicago!”  But, the reality is that there is only one great way to get to where you want to go and that way is found in the Great Book called the Bible.

I hope you liked my story…