This is Your Life

Yesterday is a wrinkle on your forehead.
 Yesterday is a promise that you've broken.
Don't close your eyes, Today is all you've got.
This is your Life, Are you who you want to be?
Is it everything you dreamed that it would be,
 when the world was younger and you had everything to lose?

                                             -Switchfoot

This song by Switchfoot is inspiring and perhaps a bit haunting. It causes a person to ponder their own life (listen at left or click here to listen to the song on YouTube). When was the last time you've thought about yours? Given the fast pace of life in our culture, or perhaps because we are afraid of what we might find, we probably don't do it nearly often enough.

Think About Your Life
What were your hopes and dreams when you were younger? Who are you now? What are you becoming? Where are you going? These are just a few questions to consider, and others may come to mind as you read this. Are you living from your heart...from the core of your being? Are you passionate about the things you do? What are your relationships like? Do you have close friends, or do you feel alone? Most of us want to make a difference in the world and know that our lives matter.

Existential Angst
There is a general sense of angst running throughout humanity that may tend to discourage us from thinking too deeply about our lives. This existential angst is an intense feeling of apprehension, anxiety, inner turmoil, or even dread and despair about our future. Solomon, whom God blessed with exceptional wisdom, put it this way: Laughter can conceal a heavy heart, but when the laughter ends, the grief remains. (1) Solomon actually wrote this to describe every one of us, that one day all of our joy will end in grief. Think about it: Eventually you and I are going to lose everything our heart wants out of life...our health, our loved ones, our very life...everything will be taken from us. Solomon is saying that deep down inside we all know this, even if we try not to think about it, and it causes an underlying sense of sadness.

This is my life: My wife Jannis and I on the deck of
the aircraft carrier USS Midway in San Diego, CA.

Secularism addresses this angst by explaining that we just have to create our own meaning during the brief time we are here. But let's be candid, if we are really here by chance alone, and nothing we ever do in this life will be remembered across the vast oceans of dead time, long after man is gone, then there can be no significance to our lives and no hope. Consequently, unless we have a way of ascribing REAL meaning to our daily activities and to our lives - a meaning that death won't steal - we will live with this chord of sadness. (2)

Loneliness
Solomon recognized something else about human beings too. He wrote: Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can fully share its joy. (3) What he means is that each of us is unique, and the inner motions and movements of our hearts are so complex, so inward, and so hidden that there is an unavoidable solitude about human existence. In the end, nobody, not even your closest friends, will ever completely understand you. Nobody will be able to walk with you everywhere you go. In that sense, you are alone in the world. And we can all sense this too. Maybe its no wonder we don't ponder our lives too often!

Christians have a powerful remedy for the dilemma of loneliness. Namely, we can have an intimate ally in God. Jesus told us that he considers those who put their trust in him to be his friends. (4) Furthermore, God knows us better than we know ourselves, and he is always with us. (5) However, if God is only an abstract concept to you, or if you don't believe in him at all...if he isn't an intimate friend to you, then you are utterly alone in this world. With this kind of isolation, none of us can live the "rich and satisfying life" that Jesus offers. (6) We are men and women created in the image of God, and we are made for relationship with him. (7). As John Eldredge put it: "our deepest need as human beings [is] to live intimately with God." (8)(2)

This is my life: My daughter Erin and I.

A Living Hope

The Apostle Peter explained why followers of Jesus also have an answer to the dilemma of the "angst" mentioned above, and to the problem of death eventually stealing from us all that we hold dear. Peter wrote:

What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole. (1 Peter 1:3-5)

Do I really believe that Jesus rose from the dead, and that I and all who put their trust in him will eventually rise from the dead too, into an eternal life where we will have it all - life healed and whole? You bet I do. In fact, to the Christian, that hope is the "anchor of the soul, firm and secure". (9) The evidence for the truth of this claim, which is beyond the scope of this post, is much more than you might think. (10) If you haven't taken the time to ponder your life lately, or to investigate the claims of Christianity, then why not start now? It could be a life changing...and a life saving experience!

Footnotes:
(1) Proverbs 14:13.
(2)  I credit Timothy Keller for much of the content of the sections on existential angst and loneliness, from his podcast entitled "The Wounded Spirit".
(3) Proverbs 14:10.
(4) I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn't confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. John 15:15
(5) God knows us intimately and has promised to always be with us. See these verses below:

Where can I go from your Spirit?

    Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.  Psalms 139:7-10

Jesus said:  And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:20

God has said,   “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5

(6)  The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life. John 10:10.

(7) So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27.

(8) Quote from "Walking With God", by John Eldredge.

(9) We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain. Hebrews 6:19.

(10) There are many good books on the topic of apologetics. I recommend the books: “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis, “The Reason for God” by Tim Keller, "He is There He is not Silent" by Francis Schaeffer, and “The Case for Christ” by Lee Strobel, which have excellent, in-depth discussions from the ground up about why the authors chose the Christian worldview; Lewis and Strobel were atheists before converting to Christianity.