CrossTalk: The Joy of Meaning

Without meaning, life is unbearable. That's a fact. No matter how strong, healthy, rich or popular you are, without purpose life is depressing, painful and profoundly sad. More than money, more than material, more than a mood change, the most joyful gift that a person can receive is the gift of meaning.

Apart from a God who directly creates your life, meaning is hard to come by. If our life is nothing but the result of chance, it is impossible to find any lasting meaning. Some might live for the pleasures of today. But that only works until tomorrow comes. Then, yesterday's self-centered choices become today's overwhelming problems. Others live for the future fulfillments of health and wealth. But these, too, pass into meaninglessness in the hour of death.

When, on the other hand, your life is directly because of the will of God, it is inherently meaningful. The very fact that you exist means something to God. This fact alone, changes everything. All at once, you have both a responsibility and a freedom. You are responsible to live as one created by God. You are free from the burden of meaninglessness. This is the joyous state of the Christian. This is the joy of a creature before its Creator.

But even here joy is elusive. Even believing in the God of creation, feelings of meaninglessness plague us. How can this be? What causes this sadness?

The problem here is that many people think that for life to have meaning we must see the big picture. We want to see how our daily drudgeries have meaning in the great scheme of things. Why must I do this? Why do I have to endure that? It all seems so meaningless.

Jesus came not only to give an ultimate meaning for the end of life. But Jesus came to redeem each and every event of your life from the morass of meaninglessness. He took the most common events of life and invested them eternal meaning. By His many miracles, Jesus proclaimed meaning in the simplest things of life: weddings, walking, seeing, talking, fishing, eating, serving and worshipping,

So, whether you are at work or at home, you are not simply marking time and waiting for something meaningful to happen in the future. Christians are not only waiting for the last day. Rather, your life right now, today, has eternal, cosmic importance because it is the life that God has given to you. It is the place where God has put you. Here Christ is at work. Here Christ is doing for you what He does best -- creating, shaping, renewing, and cleansing you. In short, here God is loving you.

Life received from God is not random but brimming with meaning. Circumstances redeemed by Christ are not hopeless but God's gracious gift to you. Every moment sanctified by the Holy Spirit is not a delay of salvation but a moment of eternity. “For this is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24)