Posted on

What Is The Meaning Of Life?

What is the meaning in life? Have you ever wondered? Why are we here and what is our purpose? We work and play and strive towards our goals, in the search for fulfilment and satisfaction.

Albert Einstein was one of the world’s most brilliant thinkers, influencing scientific thought immeasurably. He was also not shy about sharing his wisdom on other topics, writing essays, articles, letters, giving interviews and speeches. In his collection of essays and ideas “The World As I See It” Einstein speaks to the question of the purpose of life, and what a meaningful life is on several occasions.

In one passage, though not a Christian, he links it to a sense of religiosity.
“What is the meaning of human life, or, for that matter, of the life of any creature? To know an answer to this question means to be religious. You ask: Does it many any sense, then, to pose this question? I answer: The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life,” – Einstein

What is it about humanity that we desire purpose? What is it, exactly, that we are looking for? When relationships are failing, careers start feeling empty, or tragedy strikes, questions like these begin to bubble up in our minds.

Sometimes we work towards a goal for years only to find that the end result – the money, power or recognition we’ve achieved – doesn’t give us that sense of purpose and peace we were seeking to begin with. Those who haven’t yet reached their goals may look up to heroes who have made it to the top. But when asked what he wished he had known starting out, one successful athlete said, “I wish that someone would have told me that when you reach the top, there’s nothing there.”

Most people at some point in their lives, like Einstein, ponder the meaning of life. Some look for meaning by doing good deeds for others or trying to make the world a better place. Some people look for meaning in pleasure, fun or relaxation. Others pursue business success, wealth, power or politics. Others search for meaning in family or romantic relationships.

Ultimately, a deep emptiness remains. Why is that? Solomon said of God, “He has also set eternity in the hearts of men…” – Ecclesiastes 3:11. In our hearts we are aware that the “here-and-now” is not all that there is. As a result, the human heart can’t find meaning in anything less than infinite because the need in a heart is infinitely big. And so, once God, who is that infinite piece, is taken out of the possible answers to discover meaning, the human heart can’t help but try to fill more of what we think brings us meaning and purpose. The problem of course is that we try to find more in finite things such as more money, more stuff, more friends, more love, more religion or more success.

We believe that if we could only do enough, be enough, achieve enough, we will be worth something. And we desperately want to be worth something, don’t we? But what more do we need? How much is going to be enough? And so, we live for the moment, whether that moment is miserable or magnificent. But God created us for a purpose that goes far beyond anything we can even imagine here on earth. And that purpose is found in living out our role as image bearers of God, that is only possible in the restoration of a relationship with our heavenly father through his son Jesus.

That is why the Easter story of Jesus’ death and resurrection is so important… because in reality it presents to mankind the meaning of life itself. Allow me to explain. By the time Jesus died, his disciples were devastated and discouraged beyond belief. How could God’s purpose continue? What would keep this new way to God, its flame barely burning at this point, from being completely snuffed out?

Obviously, it would have been a very confusing time for the disciples. Right to the end, they thought that Jesus the Messiah was going to redeem Israel as a nation. However, Jesus ended up instead being crucified like a common criminal. How dark their outlook must have been? Where was the meaning in all of that? So, they did the only thing they could do in the circumstance… they put his body in a tomb and sealed the entrance with a large stone. Done! Nothing left but the crying.

Later on, the women come looking to anoint Jesus’ dead body with spices, this is where the story gets really interesting, they’re met by an angel who says, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.” – Matthew 28:5-6 That’s a game changer if there ever was one. “He was raised from the dead! It’s over, he’s gone. And by the way, it happened before you got here. Come on in and see for yourselves.”

Interestingly the angel didn’t roll the stone away to let Jesus out, the stone was rolled away to let us in. If we think about it, Jesus didn’t need the stone removed to get out any more than he needed the door opened to get into the upper room when he appeared to the disciples. That speaks to the invitation of almighty God extended to each of us that Easter morning, he has removed the barriers that you think are insurmountable in order that we can come to him uninhibited. The stone, a dark future, a blackened past, and certainly death are now no longer in the way of a restored relationship with God because of the resurrection.

Once the disciples saw the empty tomb, everything changed! They now realized that the meaning of life was no longer in the building of their own futures here on earth, which was only temporal anyways.
“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age’.” – Matthew 28:18-20

The meaning of life is found in a grand purpose which is to proclaim a new hope to a lost world – to proclaim a risen Saviour, to reintroduce an infinite God to our finite lives. The meaning of life is found in now giving ourselves completely to Jesus’ mission and to a God who proved his love to us by not only dying for us but also rising from the grave, defeating sin, evil and death and then staying with us.

Jesus really is alive. And what that means is that there’s a future, a purpose, a meaning to life. It’s not all darkness filled with despair. This isn’t the end, we’re not in a cul-de-sac or at the end of a black tunnel that closes in with a final wall. Truth is that there is a thoroughfare through death that Jesus went through showing us that there’s something on the other side.

Ultimately, we have a choice. We can continue to seek to guide our own lives, which results in emptiness, or we can choose to pursue God and become his image bearers, joining in his mission with a whole heart. This will result in living life to the full, having the desires of our hearts met, finding contentment and satisfaction, as we discover the meaning of life revealed through the risen Lord.

Posted on

Effective Prayer: 5 Perspectives For Disciples Of Christ

Isn’t prayer just something done to look good in front of grandma at the supper table, or something just before the message on a Sunday morning because that is just what we do? Have we ever really thought about the vital importance of prayer in the life of a believer?

I love reading the story of Nehemiah because it’s in his story where we have a great example of how crucial prayer is to the life of the believer.

“The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah. Now it happened in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Susa the citadel, that Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, “The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.” – Nehemiah 1:1-3

In 455 BC, the people of Judah and the city of Jerusalem were in a terrible condition. Over 140 years earlier, Nebuchadnezzar and the armies of Babylon had invaded Israel and had carried many of the people away as slaves. The walls had been destroyed and the gates had been burned.

Meanwhile, Nehemiah is serving as a high official, the cup-bearer to the King of Persia, at the capital city of Susa 800 miles away from Jerusalem. His role as cup-bearer is to sample the wine and the food of the king to make sure it’s not poisoned, among other roles. He is in a palace living in luxury, drinking the best wine on earth, not that little box of blush that you have in your refrigerator. He’s eating incredible food, wearing the best clothes and completely safe, no real threat to the Persian Empire at this point. I mean, this guy is living the life!

Yet, with no television to update him, no Twitter feed for him to watch pictures of his people suffering 800 hundred miles away, he’s knocked to his knees when he hears of the news back in Jerusalem. His guts turn, and he weeps before the Lord and begins to fast and pray.

By its very nature, fasting suggests that something is wrong. Eating is a normal part of human existence, so abstaining from eating implies a disruption in the very rhythm of life. When Nehemiah’s world crashed his first response was to get rid of all the distractions, food being a big one so that he could focus on the one place he would receive strength… God. He recognized that his strength and hope could only come from God and not from another piece of pie.

So, here’s a question for all of us. When our world crashes around us, when life becomes hard where do we turn? God or the refrigerator? God or sex? God or shopping? Or sports or more wine, or more of anything else but God? Nehemiah is an example of the pattern we should follow.

When the world shakes us up we should get down on our knees.

1) Prayer gives us a right perspective of others

Nehemiah was radically compassionate because he had a God sized compassion for the hurting even though he didn’t know them personally. Here’s a question for all of us to consider. Is God just telling us this is what Nehemiah felt, or is he setting before us what he wants out hearts to look like? If you look at the Bible’s expectation on us as believers in Christ, we are to feel and be bothered like our man Nehemiah was even for people we don’t even know.

What God has called you and me to, as the people of God, is to live out a type of radical compassion and empathy. As the community of faith, we are to model to the world outside of us what it looks like to be the people of God. It is being mindful of the hurts and hang-ups of others and entering into that in some very simple ways and some very complex ways and being the picture of Christ’s love and compassion for his church in our presence and in our interaction with those around us.

If our hearts are filled with compassion for the hurting, causing us to be more committed to the Lord’s commission than we are our own personal agenda, the potential is limitless of what God can & will do through us. But it won’t happen with any depth, longevity or visionary focus if we don’t learn to pray, because it’s when we fall to our knees that we are then able to have a right view of those in greatest need.

2) Prayer gives us a right perspective of God

The prophet Zephaniah describes God in a fantastic way. “The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in His love He will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” – Zephaniah 3:17

The ‘mighty’ warrior who ‘delights’ in us… My dad was involved in prison ministry. I recall as a boy of 13 going into a maximum security prison on a family day once or twice with him as he took me along to see the other side of life.

During those visits, I recall the huge prisoners with muscles bulging, tattoos everywhere, shaved heads, chewing on rusty nails – sitting out in the communal area waiting to visit with their kids. And those were the women.

What fascinated me was that no matter how big and scary these prisoners were – their own kids would run up to them and fully embrace them. To me they were scary, but to these kids they were mom & dad.

To everyone else namely the enemy the devil, our father is a big, powerful warrior to be feared, but to me he is my dad and he absolutely delights in me. In fact, Jeremiah states, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” – Jeremiah 33:3

God wants us to call on him so that he can share with us incredible blessings that we might otherwise have missed had we not reached out to him through prayer. And it’s through communion with God in prayer where he begins to change our hearts to reflect his heart of compassion.

3) Prayer gives us a right perspective of circumstances

Nehemiah knew that life’s circumstances change on a daily basis. In fact, things can go from good too bad to worse in a very short time. Even still he knew that God remained in control. At the start of Nehemiah’s story there was no tangible evidence in that moment that God was being faithful and God was keeping his promises.

The Jewish nation is scattered like the wind all over the ancient world. They have lost the land flowing with milk and honey. But Nehemiah’s prayer in verse 5 was saying, “You are faithful. You are good. You are a covenant-keeping God. You have not abandoned us. You are here even in our hurt. You love us. You will keep your promise.”

As disciples of Christ, we know who is really in control. In our humbling of self, we are admitting that we are but mere humans that don’t have the ability to save the world, who do not have the strength to keep going, who do not have the staying power to keep on keeping on. We are saying to God, that while we do not have these abilities, we know that he does. God has the ability to change us and use us for his ultimate glory. Nothing happens without God knowing about it. God can’t help being sovereign over everything – every time… it’s who he is.

4) Prayer gives us a right perspective of self

Nehemiah begins to confess the sins of Israel. “We have not been faithful. We have not kept your commands. We have not lined ourselves up with how you’ve designed the universe to work.” – Nehemiah 1:6-7

Nehemiah recognizes the importance of being honest about who he is. The truth is that the more you have an elevated view of yourself, the more it will be impossible for you to show compassion for others.

If your kids are godly because you’re awesome and not because God is gracious, then you’ll be hard pressed to show compassion for anybody who has a wayward child, because if they would have just done what you did in all your awesomeness, then they could have had a godly kid too.

If you’re financially set and not (in your mind) because God has been gracious to you but because you’ve worked and you’ve earned and you’ve set yourself up nicely and not, instead, feeling indebted to God for his mercy and grace, how impossible will it be for you to show empathy toward someone who is impoverished?

The more you are the author and perfecter of all things, the more all the blessing on your life is because of you and not because of God that has put you, in turn, into his debt, the more it will be impossible to show empathy to others who are struggling. Why? Because you’re so freakin’ awesome!

That attitude will rot out the soul’s ability to be compassionate and merciful. It will breed in us an indifference that is unacceptable before God. It will also rot out the ability to walk in unity, love, and compassion with one another and instead create a judgemental harshness among us that God will have nothing to do with.

And it isn’t until you know who you are and have a compassionate view of others and begin to have an inkling of the amazing awesomeness of God that you or I can think to know what our place is in God’s plan.

5) Prayer gives us a right perspective of our place in God’s plan

The final statement of Nehemiah in verse 11 “I was the cup-bearer…” indicates that he knew that who he was and that where he was at that moment was no accident and in many ways, he was declaring his place in God’s plan. He was the cup-bearer for a reason. Think about that for a moment, he wasn’t a prophet, he wasn’t a priest, he wasn’t a king, he wasn’t anybody particularly special… he was the waiter.

God uses who he wants to use no matter the position in life once we submit to him. He uses common fishermen, tax collectors, kings as well as shepherds, rebels and murderers like Paul and yes, he uses waiters. Regardless of your position in life, whether at church, at work, at school, at home, etc., you need to know that it is no accident! God has placed you where he has for a purpose. He has placed you where you are for his purpose! There are no accidents or coincidences with God! God has never been caught off guard… he has never once said “oops, I didn’t see that one coming.”

If our hearts are right, and we are more committed to the Lord’s commission than we are our own personal agenda, the potential is absolutely limitless. But it won’t happen with any depth, longevity or visionary focus if we don’t learn to pray, because it’s when we fall to our knees that we are then able to have a right view of self, others, our position and most importantly of God.