Some of us have turned 30 within the last year, or will turn 30 soon. It seems strange to still feel like we ought to be about 20-21, but knowing that time has marched on. Knowing that we won't be young forever, and that we won't physically live forever is becoming more and more of a reality. Opportunities are coming and going, and so are people.
Society tells us that we have to make our own way and that what WE want is most important. The trouble is what we want is continually changing as the world around us is continually changing. It seems to me like we should be more concerned with what we need.
What do we need to make us calm? What do we need to give us peace of mind? What do we need to truly live?
God. We NEED him, and what he has to offer. The world really has nothing to offer when you honestly think about it. Popularity, money, success in jobs, relationships, good times. These are all good - but they're not the answer. Why aren't they the answer? Because they cannot last. There is nothing permanent in this world. Even the most seasoned actor/actress will eventually lose mass appeal, get old, and die. Someone better and more efficient will one day succeed you in your job. Money may buy convenience, and fun but it can never buy true happiness. Having the right friends or the right women cannot guarantee happiness either. Why not? Because people are temporary also, they do not exist only to please me, and they are also searching for the same things. Good times can create good memories, but they always become memories - they also are not permanent.
So if my life is valued by the sum of all the relationships, money, popularity and good times I can accumulate, and I still die in the end - what was the point to all of it? If the end of our lives is truly the end of us, then what is the point of anything? Trouble is, no matter what the world tells us, we cannot let go of the notion that there is "something" after we die, and that there is or should be a point to all of our life experiences.
The answer to life, the value of this life, and the reasons for life can only be found in God - not just any "god" either. The God who tells us about himself in the Bible. The one who understands how meaningless life on earth is without Him - the very One who created us to need Him. The one who sent himself in Jesus Christ to die for our inadequacy, failure and pain. He is the only one who can grant meaning to our existence.
Think about it. Cemeteries are full of people who once thought life was about them. They were once young, and now they're gone.
What is your hope in?
"Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world - the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting about what he has and does - comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever." - 1 John 2: 15-17
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