A Good Question

I recently asked someone a question, and they asked it right back. Here are my humble and disorganized thoughts.

Ah. What do I desire out of life? It's always easier to ask the questions than answer them...

I want life to be so full of suffering and joy that eventually, the rock chips will fall away, and the diamond I am meant to be, will be all that remains.

Okay, I admit that sounds pretty ridiculous... even to me, but it honestly was my first thought. I will attempt to unpack it.

My belief in Christian spirituality is something I have personally come to trust in and believe as truth. It plays a huge part in how I live my life. It is also the chisel that does the shaping.

You said you want to make a difference. Why? Why do we want to make ripples in this world? I know I want to make a difference. But I believe my motives are quite different than when I first started out. They've transformed, so to speak.

Initially, I was searching for significance. I wanted my life to matter. I wanted a reason for being. I recognized I was living in a world that contains much that is bad and apparently meaningless... but as one of my favorite writers pointed out to me... the fact that I recognized that badness and meaninglessness tells me that it's not supposed to be that way. If that were not true, than I wouldn't recognize it. I was on a hunt. I wanted to try and find that meaning that must exist.

It's like this. If every human being was born blind... we would not understand the concept of darkness. We recognize darkness because we know light. We recognize badness because we somehow know goodness. (If you are interested, CS Lewis goes into great detail in "mere christianity".)

Christian spirituality provided an answer. "This is a good world gone wrong, but it still retains the memory of what it ought to have been" (paraphrased Lewis).

I talked about a transformation. These days, I find my significance in God. That's easy to say, harder to explain. I wouldn't exist if God didn't want me to. I've come to understand God wants to repair that relationship of creator and created (that we broke and continue to break).

Now, I want to make a difference to remind others of what this world is supposed to be... and just possibly, encourage them to seek their own answers... to accept that hand of friendship, meaning, and completeness that God holds out.

Jesus tells a story about a son who takes his share of inheritance and skips town. After living it up and spending all his cash, he finds himself in poverty. He realizes that the men working for his father have it better off than he does. So he slowly heads back home... thinking "Maybe ol' dad will have pity and give me a job. Anything is better than this." I can only imagine the thoughts going through the son's head. But Jesus says, while he was still a way off, his father spotted him and ran to him... gave him a huge hug... and said, "My lost son has returned. Let's party."

I think the important thing to me about this story is the father placed no conditions on the son's return... other than he wasn't going to force the son to return. I don't feel any need to "be good" so God will accept me. my attitudes and actions are the result of spending time with God. I still find myself to be quite selfish, vain, mean, judgemental, etc... "there's no addiction like self-addiction." (miller). But someday, probably not in this world... I'll finally be that solid rock I'm meant to be. I look forward to that time.

I am no expert. I am simply a boy wading through mysterious waters. Some things, I'm certain I will never understand. Sometimes, I struggle to make my head understand what my heart knows, and I also struggle to make my heart understand what my head knows.

Perhaps, that is what makes God more real to me... if I understood him, I think I'd probably find he was weak, small, silly, and not worth my time. An invention of some human mind. Instead, I find myself in a strange stupor... I guess you could call it awe... a mixture of respect, fear, and yes that often misunderstood word, love.

So that is a long answer to a brief question. Probably more than you were expecting. I wish I was better at expressing myself. In short, in life, I want to love God, and love people. It's as childishly simple and as incredibly difficult as that.

I took this photo in California. It makes me think of growth.

A wiseman once said, "A true wiseman admits he doesn't have the answers, but he does have the questions."