What Gives Our Lives Meaning?
One of the downsides, or so I am told, about losing faith in faith is that when you allow that to happen, you lose all meaning in your life. It doesn't occur to some that it is not meaningful to base a life on something others say is just around the corner, over the next hill or to shortly come to pass and it isn't. Sincere people who always look to the future for fulfillment and do not live in the present, which is the only real time there is, run the risk of almost having a life, but falling short.
How often in the last 50 years have you and I heard, "Time is short?" Time can't be short of course, but what that meant was that our time is short or that this time in history is short or mostly that the gap between now and second coming has now grown short and soon it will all be ok. Of course, "time is short," and "the things which must shortly come to pass," has been 2000 years in the making. Humans don't see 2000 years as short. Three to Five seems to be what short means to the piously convicted and that "almost here" will occur in their short time span of life.
The Apostle Paul just knew time was short. He told the single to stay single, the married to think as if they weren't, the young women to think about Jesus and the young men to leave the young women alone. The problem turns out to be that Paul was very wrong. Time was not short and once he woke up to that fact, he left the scene bragging how he had kept the faith (the one he made up from his own view of the Cosmic Christ,) and that he had made it big time. I wonder how many lives and relationships his "time is short" phase ruined?
This was after all, a man who thought marriage was so one could avoid fornication. I still say Paul was a repressed gay man, but I spare you.
The entire New Testament, mostly written by Paul was very wrong about it's view of meaning. Meaning in life for the characters in the NT was to make it into the Kingdom. To hang in there. Those who asked, "where is the promise of his coming?" were vilified and. They were the "scoffers" whose end would be very very bad. I guess it never occurred to anyone they were right. The price for noticing that time was not short, Jesus had not returned as advertised by Paul and others and people were getting old enough to die in the faith was being told their god was their belly and their end would be destruction. Only when or if the Apostle declared that time was not short after all could the lucky brethren say it too. But you didn't think it before the guru gave you permission or he did not get the credit for coming up with it.
However, the scoffers were correct in their observations. I can't find any apology from the Apostle Paul to the brethren at the end of his life for misleading them or for telling to be and act in ways that were going to cost them big time later as life ground on and Jesus still had not been given permission by God, who only really knew when, to return.
If only God knows the day and hour, how come so many guys think they do too? Oh I forgot, of the day an hour knows no man, but that does not mean we can't know the month or year. Silly me.
I still am enjoying watching the very Two Witnesses of Revelation, Mr. and Mrs. Ron Weinland (Ron I knew you when you were a kid, what happened to your mind?) come unglued. Ron can't even get his sound systems to work consistently or his appendix to behave. How is he going to come to strike the entire earth with fire, plague and fleas?
How does the COG manage to give birth to so many odd minister types?
I used to swim against Dave Pack. Could never beat the boy so I concentrated on beating my own times in events. What happened to that kid? Was I really sitting in a hot tub in Chicago in the 70's with the future true and only Apostle of God on Earth and didn't know it? Naw..... What happens to people? And who are the people that follow them and insist on hurting themselves with their continued support of said prophets, priests, apostles and kings?
So back to the question. Once you lose faith in the Plain Truth, which really would better to have been called the Present Truth, what meaning can your life possibly have?
The bottom line is that we actually assign our own meanings to life. We even do that when we think we have found the one true way to be and think Biblically. We find that for us and assign that as our meaning. For others, it is meaningless to them.
This is a very big topic, so I won't pretend to address all it's many aspects. But I'd like to give one example of how life can have real meaning to any individual who has lost "the big picture," "the faith" or finds himself "off track" as we always used to hear when the work of the church was put back on another wrong track.
Church of God members have been around on so many final gun laps that most have simply run out of final lap bullets. That's not their fault, nor has it been mine.
I just want to leave you with a story that spoke to me for some reason. Maybe it touched the raw nerve of abandonment or resentment gone crazy. Perhaps it raises the fact for me that I have failed myself in some important areas and let others down in my life. The story made me feel like anything can be fixed if those who want to wish to. It touched my "what is the meaning of all these crazy experiences?" button. It's a Sunday morning. It's very quiet and it's just me and my new dog Chewy sitting here. Well she is sitting her and it is actually me, not her doing the writing :) I have eyes full of tears and a heart that just wants to understand what the hell happened over all those years?
So this story gives me meaning. It must or I would not have reacted to it as I have. Perhaps it will give you some meaning, in the present, as well...
James 2:15-17: "If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead." ...and please, don't someone say, "it only says if they are a brother or sister in the Church...please don't say that...The last phone call I ever got from WCG when asking about retirement etc, the minister on the other end said, "no, but we will be praying for you and wish you the best..."
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"I was day tripping to Vancouver from Seattle
and stopped in for lunch at a little cafe.
From my window I saw a young teenage girl out in the cold,
squatted down in a closed up business's doorway,
holding a small bundle in her arms.
She was panhandling, people were mostly walking by ignoring her.
She looked just broken.
I finished up my meal and went outside,
went through my wallet and thought I'd give her $5 for some food.
I got up to her and she was sobbing,
she looked like she was 14-15.
And that bundle in her arms was a baby wrapped up.
I felt like I just got punched in the chest.
She looked up putting on a game face and asked for any change,
I asked her if she'd like some lunch.
Right next door was a small quick-Trip type grocery store,
I got a can of formula for the baby (very young, maybe 2-3 months old.),
and took her back to the cafe though I'd just eaten.
She was very thankful, got a burger and just inhaled it.
Got her some pie and ice cream.
She opened up and we talked.
She was 15, got pregnant, parents were angry and she was fighting with them.
She ran away.
She's been gone almost 1 full year.
I asked her if she'd like to go home and she got silent.
I coaxed her, she said her parents wouldn't want her back.
I coaxed further, she admitted she stole $5,000 in cash from her Dad.
Turns out $5,000 doesn't last long at all,
and the streets are tough on a 15 year old.
Very tough.
She did want to go back,
but she was afraid no one wanted her back
after what she did.
We talked more,
I wanted her to use my phone to call home but she wouldn't.
I told her I'd call and see if her folks wanted to talk to her,
she hesitated and gave bad excuses but eventually agreed.
She dialed the number and I took the phone.
Her Mom picked up and I said hello,
awkwardly introduced myself and said her daughter would like to speak to her.
Silence, and I heard crying.
Gave the phone to the girl and she was just quiet listening to her Mom cry,
and then said hello. And she cried.
They talked, she gave the phone back to me,
I talked to her Mom some more.
I drove her down to the bus station and bought her a bus ticket home.
Gave her $100 cash for incidentals,
and some formula, diapers, wipes, snacks for the road.
Got to the bus, and she just cried saying thank you over and over.
I gave her a kiss on the forehead and a hug, kissed her baby,
and she got on the bus.
I get a Christmas card every year from her.
She's 21 now and in college.
Her name is Makayla and her baby was Joe.
Now let me ask you a question - would you feel like your life has meaning if you could do something like that for another human being? This person spent a few hours, and a few dollars, and he changed not one but two lives, and probably the lives of her parents as well.
You might be thinking, "How can I possibly duplicate that?"
It would not be that hard to find someone to help. It would give you a good dose of meaning in life...
