What is the Purpose of Life?

Too often life is trying to make sense of the past, grappling with the present and worrying about the future, but it does not have to be this way.

If I am ever asked for any advice to pass on, then I shall tell my children to learn to deal with their fears.

Shyness must surely be one of the most severe and least understood of social fears. Shyness can also be emotionally crippling. I can say this from having lived through it and constantly having to confront my own shyness still.

If you want something strongly enough, then go after it! Ask God for it! Reach out for it!

Do not simply do nothing and pine for whatever it is you strongly desire.

True, some goals will be impossible to achieve when God says no; or possibly when other people are involved. So learn to recognize and abandon those futile quests and then let those unattainable objectives go.

My approaching 40th birthday has irked me with unwanted incentive to think and reflect upon life.

What we do, what we accomplish, who we are and what we are shall not add up to very much if anything at all. Spending a lifetime accumulating possessions seems so trite and meaningless. Fame and fortune cannot possibly be any different than obscurity and poverty. All adds up to nothing when we die. All remains behind for others do with as they choose.

Is the value of life so little, so seemingly worthless and so empty of purpose?

Or...

Is the God of Israel real? Is Jesus the Son of the God of Israel?

If not, then life is really an empty waste and truly a meaningless wander from birth to death.

If God is real and Jesus is the Son of God, then all that is life and that life becomes is trying to discern and follow the will of God. In the end, all that shall have counted here is our relationship with God, our relationship with Jesus and our relationship with mankind; this last part meaning every individual we encounter or have encountered every single day of our lives.

Does the little we do, or try to do really make any impact at all? Does our lifetime of work and existence do any good? Is our life really of any use, of any value, or of any help?

Man's search for meaning in life never changes.

The writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes already asked these and other questions, and then discovered God's answers to us centuries earlier.

Written January 22, 1994

The Oddblock Station Agent