The Meaning of Life

What is life? Most things are clarified by some sort of measurement.  A  thing is considered to be a foot long when it measures up to the ruler that says so.  A gallon is a gallon because it can be authenticated by a comparison with the standard of what constitutes a gallon. 

What about life?  How does one measure life?  Do you measure it by how long it is?  Now, be careful–there are people who have lived a long time with terrible illness and pain.  Surely you don’t think that’s life.  And what about wealth?  Is that life?  Again, be careful–there are those who have amassed huge amounts of this world’s goods and have lived a miserable and paltry life.  Could it be that life is measured in terms of power or recognition?  The answer is the same–lots of folks who have high visibility are forlorn and lonely.  And a host of folks who run huge corporations or even governments have resorted to all kinds of ungodly means just to have even some small increments of happiness.

What, then, is life?  Can it be measured?  Can it be calculated in terms of worth or value?  Can we really know what life is meant to be?  Might I suggest a few things?

Life is loving and being loved.  Without love life is a monotonous bore.  There is little to recommend it.  If you don’t have someone to love, you are missing much of what life is all about.  If you don’t love someone, there will never be that wonderful feeling of satisfaction that makes life not just bearable, but enjoyable as well.  Love is the energy by which we make, mold, and mend relationships.  Love is the means by which we reach out to others and by which they extend to us their approval.  Love is family.  Love is friends.  Love is God. Love is service, and provision, even discipline.  And aren’t these the things that really matter in life after all?  “If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” (I Jn 4:11).

Life is serving.  Not being served, but serving.  Far too many people have sought to measure life by how much control they have, by how many work for them.  We might say, “He’s very successful, he has over 50 people who answer to him.”  Is that life?  Ask the man who has the 50 people who answer to him and he’ll tell you that what he really has is 50 folks with lots more than 50 problems.  But ask the man who constantly serves others, ask the man who relinquishes his time to provide what is lacking in the lives of his fellows.  Ah! there’s the happy man.  There is no time when  a man is more like Christ than when he has put himself at the disposal of others.  There is no greater, richer, fuller life than the one that is characterized by service.  “...use not your liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another” (Gal. 5:13).

Life is using each day.  There are few things more tiring than loafing on the job.  It wears you out.  And there are few things more rejuvenating than having finished a difficult day by saying, “I’ve done the best I could.”  Life is full of opportunities for one who has the eyes to see them.  You can do things you never thought possible, but only if you try.  You can fill each moment with usefulness, but only if you make up your mind to do it.  Use the day.  Redeem the time.  The Latins had a proverb for it, carpe diem, seize the day.  It’s your day.  It belongs to you.  It’s yours to use or squander.  The choice is yours. “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, redeeming the time for the days are evil” (Eph. 5:15-16). 

Life is running the risk.  Who would deny that there are risks involved in loving and being loved?  Who would say there is no risk in serving others?  And who would dare deny that there’s a certain risk in getting involved in each day?   Sure, there are risks.  There’s a risk to getting out of bed.  There’s risk in driving to work.  There’s a risk in giving your heart to someone you love.  Life is full of risks.  But if you don’t take the chances, you can’t ever be happy.  You have to risk to care.  You have to take a chance when you do for someone other than yourself.  And if you resolve to make each day your own, you run the risk of making someone angry; but it’s worth it.  Paul said (II Tim. 2:3), “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”  Endurance is a vital part of life.  You won’t ever have much of a life until you run the risks and endure the pain.

Solomon sought diligently to find life.  He looked in all the wrong places.  He tried pleasure, wealth, fame, philanthropy, searching every nook and cranny.  He concluded, after this lifetime quest, “Let us hear the conclusion to the whole matter: fear God and keep His commandments for this is the whole duty of man.”  If you would like a happy, richly fulfilling life, live it in the fear of the Lord.  

C’est la vie.  That’s life.

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