Not About Us

Though I was not preaching last week due to attending our Annual Conference, I was still writing. Here is an article I wrote for the pastor's column in the Ephrata Review, our local weekly newspaper. It was published in this week's edition (July 11, 2012).


The apparent shrinking of our world defines one of the great developments in this age in which we live. Just a bit over 20 years ago my family and I moved to Africa to serve the church there. Our means of communication consisted of letters that took anywhere from a month to a half year to reach home or a telephone located several hours away that worked intermittently. Now I can pick up my cell phone and call my friends there as easily as I call across the street. Colleagues that served a generation before me tell of long journeys lasting many months to reach their destination, while my family and I flew to Nigeria in a matter of hours. And now Facebook, Skype and other technologies enable us to have face to face conversations with loved ones living half a world away. Clearly things have changed.

And yet, with all this technology that links our world, we are lonelier than ever. We cast about seeking meaning and purpose. Many of us aimlessly wander through life, searching for an elusive happiness in the things we can accumulate or the activities in which engage. We are told that life is all about us, that finding the right partner, landing the right job, making a big enough salary or acquiring notoriety, will bring us the inner worth we crave. But it never works. As we sit by ourselves in the twilight of evening, we find ourselves asking, “Is this all there is?”

A wise sage once said, “If you want to find your life, you first have to lose it,”(Matt. 10:39) and another ancient voice says, “You are not your own; you have been bought with a high price” (1 Cor. 6:19). The root of our desperation stems from an error in our thinking. It is a fundamental mistake. One that all of us make, initially, and, even after realizing it, from time to time. It is the human condition. The mistake is the belief that life is all about us. It is not, and to think it is marks the gravest error anyone can make. To assume life is about us sets us on a self-centered quest for which there is no satisfaction. Rather, we are not our own; we were made for something else. Until we lose ourselves in the “else” we will strive endlessly to find rest from our labor.

What is the “else?” The “Else” we really seek is our Creator. He made us with intention. Though we rebel against him, he buys us back by his grace and seeks to call us to a place where we fulfill the purpose for which He created us. And when we do—when we lose our lives in His purpose—we find the abundant life, a life so full we need nothing else.

So what is life about if it is not about me? Well, simply put, life is about God. It is about bringing God honor and praise and glory in all I am and all I do. Life is about honoring God in my home; not about having my needs met. Life is about honoring God through my job as I provide a service to my community; not about acquiring wealth to spend on myself. Life is about honoring God in my relationships, as I learn to be gracious and righteous and kind and devoted.

Life is not about you or me. After all, we did not choose to be here. Life, the abundant life, is found in knowing our Creator and enjoying a life-long relationship with Him through the gift of life received through faith in his Son, the Lord Jesus.