BLOG 9/4/16. WHAT IF YOUR LIFE HAS NO FINAL GOAL?

BLOG 9/4/16. WHAT IF YOUR LIFE HAS NO FINAL GOAL? (Labor Day Special)

Here’s one to chew on over this Labor Day weekend: What if your life has no final goal? Oh, maybe it has some immediate purpose such as doing your job well, making a profit, being a good student, or an exemplary family person, …  but I’m talking about the meaning of life. There are those that say that every person ultimately needs five things if his or her life is to be fulfilled: 1) a center, 2) an authority, 3) a creative source, 4) a guiding line, and 5) a final goal. Got it? It’s easy to push that to the back of one’s mind in the press of immediate responsibilities, but it lurks there.

OK, so a final goal is some kind of an ‘act of faith,’ so be it. But without it one is ultimately adrift on the boundless, bottomless sea of chance. To have some kind of a convincing final goal is unbelievably extraordinarily liberating. That is one of the huge existential claims of Jesus as he comes as God’s saving Word into the human community: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Again, OK, either he is, or he isn’t. But it doesn’t stop there. As the reality and message of Christ exploded into the world in the first generation after his earthly life, … it was the consciousness that Jesus had come to tune us into God’s design for the whole creation so engaged in its rebellion and brokenness … and search for meaning.

So there is an interesting teaching (usually overlooked) in the teachings of Christ’s apostle and teacher, Paul, that says worlds (at least to me). Check it out (Romans 8:28 ff). It says that God does, indeed, have a purpose for our lives and this world, and that everything is working irresistibly toward the fulfillment of that purpose, i.e., God does have a final goal. Then it goes on to say that to those who respond to his call, the works everything ultimately for good—but to those who are called to be a part of his ultimate purpose. … But it doesn’t stop there. It is to say that to such folk (you and me) who are called are part of his predetermined plan that they should—here goes— “be conformed to image of his Son.” That can sound like a lot of “churchy” gobble-de-gook, but look closer. What God is up to in the world is to created all things new: a New Creation (or the Kingdom of God), and that an essential part of this is the creation of a New Humanity, i.e., humanity as God intends it to be.

What does that mean? Well, in two other of Paul’s writings it gives us a clue: in one place it says that such New Humanity is recreated in a fantastic new way of life—true righteousness—life whose lifestyle is like that of Jesus in love of others, and servant-hood, and joy … the very life of Jesus living itself out in each of those who are His. Then it says such people of God are recreated in holiness, which simply means that they will be living in harmony with the Divine-Trinitarian community … they will be “at home” with God. (This is in Ephesians 4:24).

The next clue is that these who respond to God’s call are to be-being recreated in knowledge. Their minds will begin to think again as they are intended to think, and to use their minds to accomplish God’s purpose for His creation in whatever circumstance or existential reality that is theirs.

Such a final goal, is I indicated above is wonderfully liberating, and had been demonstrated in innumerable lives over the intervening centuries in a huge plethora of human accomplishment. But what those who are called have experienced is the liberating reality of knowing what it is that is beyond their human accomplishment, and to what the whole thing is about: meaning.

Chew on that!

[These Blogs are read primarily by a lot of wonderful folk with whom I have crossed paths, and walked with over many years. If you think they would be helpful to others, then suggest that they subscribe. That would be cool!]

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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