Your Life Matters

At the end of the day,  I think most people are asking the same question about their lives and themselves. Do I matter?

Working people want to know that their effort counts for something, that they are contributing to a worthwhile end, that the monotony and frustration and sweat adds up to something real. Few things are more demoralizing than pointless work.

Mothers want to know that the energy and emotion they pour into their children is appreciated and meaningful and fruitful.

Teachers want to see their students go beyond themselves. Artists want to see that someone else values their creativity and vision. Builders want more than a check at the end of the contract; they want to see a look of satisfaction on pride on the face of the customer.

Do I matter? It is amazing the lengths we will go to find an answer to that question. Some look for it at the end of every sixty-hour week, others in each new relationship or liaison, and some in the applause of a crowd or even the appreciative smile of a single onlooker.

This is a question of life-and-death urgency. Every human being hungers to know that their life has a purpose.

For all who are asking that question today, in some form or other, I give you the blessed words of the apostle Paul, whose own life was, in many ways, a search for meaning. As he looked forward to the soon-return of Jesus, he offered this prayer to the many, many people who hunger to know that their lives are not in vain.

Because we know that this extraordinary day is just ahead, we pray for you all the time—pray that our God will make you fit for what he’s called you to be, pray that he’ll fill your good ideas and acts of faith with his own energy so that it all amounts to something (2 Thess. 1:11–12, MSG).

You do matter. Your work matters. Your life matters. It all amounts to something. God will make it so.

May God bless, you my brother or sister, and may he take the energy and passion that you pour into living the God-life and make it productive and meaningful, more that you ever imagined.

How do you find meaning in your life?