What does the future holds for you? What you are looking forward to at the end of the day, the week, the month, the year, or at the end of your existence on earth?
Today, you may have all the cash, the power, and the means to live a bustling and vibrant life. You may go to fancy restaurants and have all the delicacies other people can only dream of. You can count among your circle of friends the rich, powerful and the good-lookings. You may have a huge villa you call home. You may be throbbing in eagerness about living your life.
But deep down there will also be an emptiness, a cold emptiness.
“What is life really about?” sometime do come up and often as a topic of conversation. Many had thought hard about it; many don’t. Sometimes, it’s a philosophical discussion that stretches for hours. Sometimes, its a simple statement with a beer in one hand and a barbeque chicken wing on the other. Other times, its a quiet moment with oneself.
Emptiness is not a feeling. It is a state of being; of nothingness or missing something but doesn’t really know what it is. This emptiness can come out disguised as restlessness; a counterfeit thirst for maybe an exotic travel or a certain lifestyle. It can also be disguised as a need to pamper ourselves or to gain acceptance, belonging and love. You may also find temporary relief with materials things like shopping, spending, splurging, on oneself, or on your loved ones – these things help to banish that sense of the lack of purpose. The world tells you not to think too much into it and get yourself occupied but ironically, you don’t want to get yourself occupied with things that don’t matter or last because the more you do the more meaningless it gets.
There is this obvious “hunger” that always linger and people will always try to find ways to fulfill this hunger but are never satisfied. People will indulge and over-indulge themselves with almost anything; from food, alcohol, drugs, sex, money, material luxuries, almost any and everything avaliable. But there seem just no permanent displacement for that emptiness, it just stood there quietly, but you know its there. Whatever relief you know is only temporary.
If life is a highway, chances are you see yourselves leading lives in the fast lane, blindly trailing the car in front of you. Its a race against time, a race against other cars and race against yourselves, but you don’t really know why you are racing, or where you are going or why you are driving for that matter in the first place. You spend your lives climbing up the ladder of life until, at the end of it all, you realise that there are nothing in the attic at all or worse, you were leaning against the wrong wall.
No one is willing to settle for a meaningless life and existence. We care about what we live for, how to live; even if some don’t know exactly what it is. Some go all out to searching and trying to find meaning, rather than settle for a bland – mediocre existence.
So what is the your life and your future all about?
Let me offer one alternative view. Real meaning in life, both now and in the future eternity, is found in the restoration of the relationship with a one true God, the Father. This relationship was lost at the time of the first man and woman, Adam and Eve’s fall into sin when they disobeyed God. Now, that relationship with God is only possible and restorted through His only Son, Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12; John 14:6; John 1:12). And with that restoration, eternal life is gained when we acknowledge our sinful nature and the sacrifice Jesus Christ made on the cross; accepting Him as a Saviour, letting Him change us into a new person.
Real meaning in life is not found merely in finding Jesus as Savior, rather, it is when one begins to understand how much God the Father and Jesus love us. To follow Christ as His disciple, learning of Him, spending time with Him in His Word – the Bible, communing with Him in prayer, and in walking with Him in obedience to His commands. It may not sound very interesting or exciting, but once the Holy Spirit which is in every believer reveals God’s love for us in His Word, that is so applicable in time of our need, and we feel His presence and love, it will be so overwhelming.
Jesus made the following statements: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30). “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10b). “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25). “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).
What all of these verses are saying is that we have a choice. We can continue to attempt steering our own lives which inevitably results in an empty life, or we can choose to pursue God and His will for our lives wholeheartedly. Real people’s testimonies will tell you the result will be living life to their fullest, having the desires of their hearts met, and finding contentment and satisfaction which they have never found. This is so because our Creator loves us so much and it is His sole desire to have the best for us. From our perspective, it may not be necessarily the easiest, but it will be the most fulfilling.
The Christian life can be compared to watching God work “from the front row”. Watching God work firsthand is the privilege the disciples of Christ who have truly stopped pursuing their own desires so that they can be pursuing God’s purposes have. And God’s sole purpose is to have the best for His children that He stake all of Himself on; for us. Jesus has paid the price so that we can experiencing life to its fullest; and we can face themselves, their fellow man, and their Maker with no reservations or doubts.
Jesus said in Matthew 10:39: If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it. Have you done so? If you have, you will not hunger after meaning or purpose in life again.
God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart (Ecclesiastes 3:11). And that eternity in your heart can only be filled by that One that is eternal.
