In Search of Life's Meaning
In some ways we get off track looking for "the" meaning of life. Instead, we need to look for ways to make life meaningful. That can be done in more than one way.
Yes, I find meaning in God, but not the way some proclaim it. Far too often I hear Christians shouting praises to God, lifting up the name of Jesus, and so forth, but I don't get the sense they really understand what worshipping and praising God really is, much less what it means to be a believer in Jesus Christ.
God does not fill our lives with meaning simply because we profess to trust Jesus or claim that God is powerful and exists. Rather than some magical or emotional infusion of a sense of discovery, God offers us a sense of purpose in the process of living according to God's will and priorities for our lives. This is not because God has some arbitrary list of commandments, but because God grants us a way to discover a better way of living through loving our fellow human beings, serving the needs of one another, and generally living at peace with others and with ourselves.
That journey of living according to God's will can look different in one life and the next. That is because God delights in diversity and has created a world that embodies and indeed depends upon diversity. We know that a healthy ecosystem depends on biodiversity in both fauna and flora. We know that our own bodies depend on a diverse bacterial biome. In the same way, different human beings and their respective communities will find diverse means to express God's will and purposes, but in general, we can define the high points as extending compassion, grace, mercy, forgiveness, and support for those in need.
Different communities of faith will find different means of speaking of and living out their faith in God. Some will focus on ritual more than others. Others will highlight certain arts. Others will give more room to academics, while others will settle on emotion or sentimentality. Still others will focus, perhaps even exclusively, on works of mercy and charity. The issue I find with some of this is that often there is not a sufficient understanding to undergird these mono-dimensional expressions of faith. I have seen many instances in which such a definition is promoted as the only appropriate expression and any departure would exclude one from reaching heaven.
That is not consistent with Jesus' teaching and ministry. Jesus allowed for emotional expression, just as he allowed for academic reflection, works of mercy, and ritual practice. He also explored some of the limits in each of these expressions of faith. More than any one of them, he called us into relationship with both God and our fellow human beings.
While there is no single path that can be defined to the exclusion of all else, the center of what I find in Jesus is the following. God loves humanity in its fullest expression and diversity. God desires us to live in harmony with one another (Harmony requires multiple notes being played alongside each other.) God desires that we seek peace and work toward a society that includes every individual within its self-expression. God desires that we live in relationship with one another and with God.
Some will claim that God speaks to them directly, whether in an audible voice, some inner perception, through other believers, or in the reading of Scripture. I find God much more fluid than such definitions. While I have at times experienced all of those expressions of God's presence and direction, I have also found God to speak to me through unbelievers, works of fiction, personal reflection, various other arts, and experiences of nature. I find God in science, mysticism, and many other venues where many would exclude God from being. I find Jesus entering similar venues in the course of his earthly ministry and exclaiming for the disciples over the faith of some unworthy individual.
My evangelical traditions have often portrayed a well-defined path for initiating a relationship of faith in God. The most touted tends to be the Romans Road to Salvation, looking at Paul's arguments in the book of Romans as the path for coming to God for salvation. The problem with said definition is that Jesus presented us in the Gospel of John numerous avenues for understanding and initiating salvation and relationship with God. In the case of Nicodemus, Jesus presented him with at least three expressions in John chapter three.
I would prefer to simplify the process. Salvation and a relationship with God is a process. It is a journey. It changes and develops as we journey through life. As a child, I understood that Jesus was my friend and wanted what was best for me. That was enough for me to trust him. As I became a teen, I saw that faith needed to be more than an acceptance that Jesus was my friend. It called me to allow faith to make a difference in my life, expressed in following Jesus' teachings and ministering to others. Looking to the example of my parents', I understood God calling me into missionary service, aware that there were still many ways that call could be expressed. I found that teaching theology allowed me to have a larger impact on the lives of people around me. That has since informed my ministry as a pastor, writing for former students and others beyond my local church.
As I continue studying and working with people from different walks of life, God continues to challenge me to broaden my understanding even more in regard to what it means to follow Christ Jesus and live in relationship to God.
There have been moments when I have struggled with the very concept of God's existence. All the while, I have found that the faith journey I travel still offers answers, questions, and promptings that still give meaning and structure to my life, even when some of the answers my tradition handed me are no longer as valuable or relevant as they were at one time. Along this journey, however, I still find that God continues to abide my questions, concerns, and doubts, drawing me into a progressively deeper response of faith into uncharted waters.
I do not always see God the way I have seen God at other times in my life. I do not always find that a former expression of faith is sufficient in a new context I encounter. In a similar manner, I do not have the same relationship with my father or mother that I enjoyed as a five-year-old child. As we have aged, our relationships have matured, grown, stretched, and shifted. So also my faith in God has found different structures, forms, and expressions along the course of my life.
As I did at age five, I find meaning in my faith in Jesus as friend and savior. My understanding of that faith has changed and matured over the decades, however. Jesus is still my friend and savior, but he is so now in a different manner. I have learned that Jesus is not nearly so burdened with issues of guilt and sin as portrayed in my heritage. I find that Jesus is more concerned with giving my life a sense of fulfillment not in personal gain and well-being, but in finding ways to impact others in a positive manner. I find that in fulfilling those purposes I have a greater sense of well-being and enjoyment than I would in pursuing well-being for its own sake.
It is in this journey of discovery that I find the dynamics of faith to be ever relevant to the changing circumstances of my life and the lives of those around me. Tonight I open the gym at the church as an emergency shelter from high winds and rain, not knowing if anyone is going to show up. At some other point in my life, that would have been pointless. Today it is simply an offering that I can make, and I do not have to carry the responsibility for who will or will not take refuge with us. At one point, this would not be a spiritual practice, but today I find it deeply spiritual as Jesus called us to minister to those around us who are in need.
A few years ago, I watched a group of children learning about the need for access to clean water in Malawi, half a world away. They raised money to purchase a treadle pump for a village of people they did not know. I watched one child take half of his savings to put toward this need. Having a hand in that process of life transformation reassures me that my life has meaning and purpose. I have since had the opportunity to see a couple of those children give their lunch on more than one occasion to someone who was hungry. None of that solves the problems faced by our world, but it tells me that we have the opportunity to continue making one impact after another that leads us toward the goal of living for much more than personal comfort and security.
This is what faith calls us to do and to be. God calls us to become agents of transformation in this world. Faith is that journey of living up to God's call. In faith, we join God in becoming a people who care for one another and who encourage others to live according to that same higher calling.
How do we embark on this journey of faith? Perhaps the question is better framed, “How would you like to begin?” There are a thousand ways to invite a woman on a date. There are at least a thousand ways to respond. God has already invited us to begin that journey of faith. What is left is for us to respond.
For some it might be making a financial donation. For others it is with a prayer. For another it is seeking out a body of believers. For another it is by reading a book. The issue is not so much how we respond to God's call to fellowship and faith, but that we respond.
It is in this response to living for something beyond ourselves that we can find meaning and a sense of fulfillment in life. Not everyone will be Mother Teresa, Mahatma Ghandi, or Martin Luther King, Jr. Then again, they did not start off life with the accomplishment through which we now see them. A journey of faith begins with its first step. Once you take the first one, the second follows along much more easily, and meaning and purpose do not lie too far ahead. As we journey, however, we just find more and different ways to arrive at that meaning.
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