I love stories. Stories have a way of painting beautiful pictures and coordinating thoughts in a way that weave us through the pain and hardships to a conclusion that often brings resolution to the main conflicts in a tale. Somewhere during my college experience I began to love to hear people's life stories. Being a part of a touring group while in college exposed me many different places and homes and we were required to spend a good amount of time getting to know who we were staying with. These experiences have actually brought me to all sorts of different people's homes in Alberta, British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. Each person had a unique story of how they got to where they are today and what kinds of events caused them to get to where they are today.
Now, you may be reading this thinking, this is all pretty logical but it has been my experience that we rarely take the time to sit back and reflect on our lives. Instead I hear many people caught up in the moments they find themselves in crying out for help or just looking to vent their frustrations with other people or God to someone who will listen. I'm not downplaying the need to vent or to work out your emotions, but what I am advocating for is that we do not live our lives blindly.
When Paul, while in prison for preaching the gospel of Christ, writes to the Philippians, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain....Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ." He is preaching a message that reminds us that in everything we do we should be working towards an eternal treasure that will last. So let's put our lives in perspective... what are we living for? What is the purpose to all we do? In the end, when all is stripped away will it matter if I ran the full half marathon or if I walked some? Or if I looked like a fool trying to make someone smile? Or will it be my attitudes and motives that are brought under judgement?
At any rate, this week in Don't Waste Your Life, John Piper shares his story where he grappled with the idea of what it meant to not waste his life. One of his wake up moments came from a sermon illustration that his dad presented at his church growing up about a man he was visiting in the hospital weeping over the fact that he was nearing the end of his life and just now realizing that he had wasted it.
He brings up the point of differing world-views that people tend to view life through. One of them being existentialism. Basically existentialism is a philosophy that basically states, "The only 'essence' or 'truth' that exists is the kind that we create." In this line of thinking, we have the ability to define our own purpose and meaning in life. Everything we do is contingent upon the values that we individually uphold.
Genesis 1:1 combats this world-view right from the very beginning saying, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." John 1:1-3 also backs this up by saying, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made." Existentialists argue that man has the ability to create his/her own truth, but the Bible declares that nothing that has been made has been created without God's signature attached. Thus we are subject to the objective truths that God has created.
The next thing that Piper points out is that while the world likes to make excuses and exclusive statements about people; such that you are either logical or rational or you are emotional and playful, the bible portrays that God calls all of our being to love Him and obey Him. (See Mat. 22:35-38) We are called to worship in spirit and in truth which encompasses both the rational and emotional parts of our being. God is not mutually exclusive. "He [God] combined things that almost everybody today assumes are mutually exclusive: rationalism and poetry, cool logic and warm feeling, disciplined prose and free imagination." (Piper, 19).
God is the ultimate reality, and until we submit our whole being to Him, we will be wasting our lives. Take a moment to reflect with these questions:
1. How is it that you got to where you are today?
2. Read Exodus 3:13-14. According to this passage, God's name is "I AM WHO I AM." How does this verse respond to those who say that there is no Reality (Meaning, Essence, Purpose) until we create it? Where is Ultimate Reality found?
3. Read Romans 1:18-23. Is there "Truth" (with a capital T) in the world? Are men ignorant of Truth, or do they suppress it?
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