Life's Purpose
“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
I have spent a great deal of my life contemplating the purpose of it. Our major life purpose is to love God and others to the best of our ability. We love others by helping bear their burdens.
During these last six months I went through a relapse with depression and anxiety. It was one of the worst bouts I ever had. The medication I took was no longer working properly, so I had to switch medications and experienced some very severe side effects while trying several. This was a torturous period. If I wasn't experiencing depression, it was anxiety, or even worse, both at the same time. I prayed for healing, but my prayers didn’t seem to be answered. All I got was silence. I felt abandoned, but one way I knew God had not completely abandoned me was he gave me people to love and care for me through the worst of it. I felt His love through them.
God in His great mercy gives us people to help bear our burdens. Sometimes the pain is so great that all we can do is just receive their love. The thing that makes suffering bearable is to know we are all in this together. We are inextricably interconnected and cannot be any other way without causing irreparable harm to each other. We have to fight the tendency to isolate and hide from others in the hard times. We have been hiding ever since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. There is a lot of shame that comes from suffering.
Genesis 3:9-11
Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”
So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself." And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?”
There will be times where we feel completely broken, like everything has been ripped out from underneath us. When others love us during these times it is the most wonderful thing in the world. Every good thing comes from God and we can see glimpses of His agape love through others. When it seems like God is distant He can still love us through others.
God loves us with such an epic love that longs to express itself in the deepest and most thoughtful ways. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever known. It makes me want to at once weep and get caught up in a heavenly rapture. God’s love defies all explanation. It is gentle and unassuming, yet as defiant and fierce as a blazing inferno. God's love isn't always what we would think of as being kind. He is firm in what He wants for us, which is our highest good, even if there is a significant amount of pain involved. There are some things that we can only learn through suffering. It is one of our most hated yet greatest teachers.
“If God is Love, He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness. And it appears, from all the records, that though He has often rebuked us and condemned us, He has never regarded us with contempt. He has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense.” – C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
Perhaps what I love most about God is that I cannot quite capture Him. When I try to explain His attributes it presents a unique literary challenge. I do not quite have the adequate words. The words I do have need to be combined in all sorts of creative ways that still never seem to fully convey what I want to express. I grasp for words that don’t exist. Like a preschooler with crayons trying to depict an unfathomably beautiful sunset, I cannot fully do God justice in my description but I will keep trying for the rest of my life.
“In our deepest moments we say the most inadequate things.”
― Edna O'Brien, A Fanatic Heart
During the last six months of suffering I kept asking, “Why, God?” I hardly ever got a response, just more suffering. I started to get angry and bitter towards God but I didn’t like the person I became. It made my suffering even worse. I realized it was better to love God even when I didn't understand. When I was in the midst of the worst suffering and felt the most abandoned, I started saying “I know you are with me. I can’t feel you, but I know you are here.” I actively forced myself to say it because I didn't feel it at all.
“Sometimes it takes great suffering to pierce the soul and open it up to greatness.”
― Jocelyn Murray
In this study portion of Job it explains the reason Job’s friends sat with him in silence:
“One ancient Jewish tradition teaches that people who come to comfort someone in mourning should not speak until the mourner speaks. That is a wise tradition, for often the best response to another person’s suffering is to say nothing...Those who wish to comfort people in sorrow should consider silence before speech, empathy before explanations, and patience with their pain...Some questions are so deep that their best response is silence” (McGrath 777).
Trusting God means to know He is good no matter what we are going through. It means to keep loving Him even when we don’t understand. It's an act of the will. We have to live in a world where things are not tied up with a pretty little bow and a full explanation. Maybe we can look it as part of the grand mystery that it is. Can we live in a place of being okay with not fully knowing why?
Mother Teresa was one of the most inspirational women of all time. She gave her life to help the poorest of the poor in Calcutta. If you ever watch the movie The Letters it shows this divine mission God placed in her heart. People didn’t always understand it, but that didn’t deter her. As she continued her work, she spent the last 50 years of her life not feeling the presence of God. This woman gave her life to help others for the glory of God, and didn't even feel God’s presence...for 50 years! How did she do that?
When we feel God's presence less as time goes on, I don’t think it’s because of anything we’ve done wrong. I think it's part of the maturing process. Like any good parent, God gives us the freedom to make our own choices, and distance and space to mature. What if this distance can help us focus on and love others more? When we focus on others we get outside of ourselves and find our life’s purpose. This world is so in need of the love we have to give. Everyone is suffering in their own way. When you pay close attention you will see the suffering others often try to hide. A little burden sharing goes a long way in this world. We have to endure with others through the painful times to help alleviate their suffering, even if it is uncomfortable for us.
The greatest thing about receiving love in our time of need is that it inspires us to want to do the same for others when we are able. I want to be as healthy and filled with God’s love as I can so I can minister His love, grace and mercy to all. I don’t want to hide. I want to share my struggles in the hope that others will not feel so alone. I will embrace it as part of my experience. It is not good, but goodness can come from it.
“The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty -- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.” - Mother Teresa
Works Cited
Mcgrath, Alister E. Life Application Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1997. Print.
Comments