What matters?
"What really matters?"
Sitting at the kitchen table this morning, with my breakfast cereal digesting in my stomach, I found myself meditating on this question. It would not escape me. What causes me to care about what matters? Why do I want to give my life to that which matters? If I want to live for something that matters, then there must be something that matters.
As I meditated, journaled and navigated the deep waters of this question, I discovered that this is a question that has pervaded much of my thought for the past several years. Ever since coming to college really, but moreso over the past four years after my return from South Africa.
I realized this morning that when I find myself in a situation that seems void of joy, it is an experience that is often tainted by a feeling of tentativeness, uncertainty and a curiosity that wonders, "Does this really matter?" What I truly want is to live life with a certainty - a contentment - that says, "This matters. This is what I want to live for. This is worship. This is...life."
Jesus said that there is a real enemy - a ruler of this temporal world - who comes to steal, kill and destroy life. He does not want us to have life as God intended it in Eden. But, Jesus has come into this world that we might have life - zoe - abundant, God-filled life.
So, I ask myself, "Is God real?" Yes, I believe that fully.
"Throughout history, what has been the revelation that tells me about God?" The Bible, I believe.
"What does the Bible say is God's ultimate revelation of himself on earth?" Jesus.
So, as I sojourned through these questions this morning with several more clarifying questions in between, I ended up here: what really matters? Jesus.
My mind immediately jumped to a short word from, John, one of Jesus' closest friends while on earth.
He said, "Whoever claims to live in God, must live his life as Jesus did." 1 John 2.6
All these questions about what really matters seem to lead me to the same place. I'm sure that I will continually wrestle with questions of a specific, secondary calling in life and choices over this endeavor or that one, but as I zoom out and look at my life from the end, I know this:
I do not want my life to end with a question mark. I want it to end at the cross.
Sitting at the kitchen table this morning, with my breakfast cereal digesting in my stomach, I found myself meditating on this question. It would not escape me. What causes me to care about what matters? Why do I want to give my life to that which matters? If I want to live for something that matters, then there must be something that matters.
As I meditated, journaled and navigated the deep waters of this question, I discovered that this is a question that has pervaded much of my thought for the past several years. Ever since coming to college really, but moreso over the past four years after my return from South Africa.
I realized this morning that when I find myself in a situation that seems void of joy, it is an experience that is often tainted by a feeling of tentativeness, uncertainty and a curiosity that wonders, "Does this really matter?" What I truly want is to live life with a certainty - a contentment - that says, "This matters. This is what I want to live for. This is worship. This is...life."
Jesus said that there is a real enemy - a ruler of this temporal world - who comes to steal, kill and destroy life. He does not want us to have life as God intended it in Eden. But, Jesus has come into this world that we might have life - zoe - abundant, God-filled life.
So, I ask myself, "Is God real?" Yes, I believe that fully.
"Throughout history, what has been the revelation that tells me about God?" The Bible, I believe.
"What does the Bible say is God's ultimate revelation of himself on earth?" Jesus.
So, as I sojourned through these questions this morning with several more clarifying questions in between, I ended up here: what really matters? Jesus.
My mind immediately jumped to a short word from, John, one of Jesus' closest friends while on earth.
He said, "Whoever claims to live in God, must live his life as Jesus did." 1 John 2.6
All these questions about what really matters seem to lead me to the same place. I'm sure that I will continually wrestle with questions of a specific, secondary calling in life and choices over this endeavor or that one, but as I zoom out and look at my life from the end, I know this:
I do not want my life to end with a question mark. I want it to end at the cross.
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