THE MEANING OF LIFE
I’ve been taking a book study class on the book of Ecclesiastes this semester, so naturally I thought it might be fitting to title this post “The Meaning of Life.” For those of you not in the loop on that one, Ecclesiastes is a book in the Bible written on the meaning of life. Hahaha, no I do not think I’ve completely got the meaning of life figured out at 22, but that is all I’ve been reading about the last six months, so I figured i might as well squeeze a blog post out of it.
Ironically, the content of this post comes much more from a book I have been reading lately than that class even, though. The book is titled Delighting in the Trinity, and a guy named Michael Reeves wrote it. (S/O to my favorite professor, Styles, for loaning me the book.) The book, as you may have guessed by the title, is a bit more weighty than the average blog post can entertain, so I’ll cut to the chase.
What on Earth (no pun intended) did God do before, well, Earth? I mean, obviously the world, haha, revolves around us (again my puns). But really, without the world we know today, what was God doing? Where was he? Omnipresent (that word means present everywhere), I suppose, but really, what was he doing?
Michael Reeves suggests in his book that God was delighting in Himself. Sounds a bit egocentric, I know.
It’s actually the exact opposite.
See, we believe that the trinity, which is God, is one entity with three distinct persons. I’m not going to attempt to explain that here because that isn’t my point, but my point is that God delighting in Himself was very relational in nature, which is the exact opposite of egocentric. Our God, by nature and definition, is relational. Relationship was all he did for eternity past.
He was not bored.
God the Father delighted in God the Son and Spirit. God the Son in the Father and the Spirit. God the Spirit in the Father and Son. You get it. I’m getting somewhere with this I promise.
See, about two days ago, I was sitting at the dinning room table in a similar fashion to every Thanksgiving, listening to all of my all-too accomplished family members talk about changing the world at the UN, in the music industry, and even Hollywood. That’s when I shifted my focused from worrying about if I’d ever measure up to them, to noticing the common thread: Everyone found the most meaning in OTHERS. What they did that involved OTHER people was what gave the the most satisfaction. It was always external—from someone else. Not internal. It had to involve OTHER people. “Them alone” couldn’t get anywhere.
Will I take this point and argue that we should do everything from now on to please or gain praise from others?
Absolutely not. I’m going deeper than that.
If I was going there, your John Piper, “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him” radar ought to be going off. “ Ironically, that is somewhat my point.
My point is this: we are meant for more than ourselves because God delights in more than Himself. (And also only Himself, considering all three members of the trinity are still Him, but again that isn’t the point.) We are relationally geared because God is relationally geared.
Before Earth was around, God delighted in Himself for literally all of eternity past. This was meaning. Relationship. We are limited alone. Together, we can delight. In fact, we will for all eternity future to come. In Jesus, which brings me back to my point.
The author of the book of Ecclesiastes concludes that life under the Sun is meaningless. He was right if he was referring to life under the sun, which would be metaphorical for life outside God and community. If we are only among ourselves, we are left cut off from our Creator and the only one we are meant to truly delight in. More than that, we are cut off from truly giving and loving the rest of His creation via the context of relationship.
So, friends, I offer you the meaning of life: Anything but ourself.
Primarily, God. Secondarily, his people.
It’s what all the law and the prophets hang on. Loving God and others.
So, I challenge you this Holiday season to get outside yourself, and delight in relationship. It’s the way we were made to be.
