Living your life according to design!
Part 1: The Problem Defined
Let’s imagine now for a second a world where there is no injustice, where everyone is living in harmony with everyone else and we all live meaningful, purposeful lives. It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? It sounds like something you might find in a fairy tale.
However, if you’re honest, you would want to live in such a world, wouldn’t you? I know I would. I mean, let’s face it, there would be no need for any women’s or men’s rights activism or any activism for that matter. Equal pay for both men and women and equal parenting rights for both sets of parents, and a plethora of other injustices not to be found in our society, and where we would be able to lead productive, meaningful lives because there would not be any impediment to keep us from experiencing them. Wouldn’t you want that?
However difficult or seemingly impossible or unrealistic it may seem, I nevertheless believe that it is possible, and the reason why we have not been able to experience such a reality, is because we do not really know who we are, and why we are here on this little planet and in our universe.
I therefore contend that it is only possible if we see the world as having been created by God as opposed to seeing it in a humanistic/naturalistic or materialistic way. You can read my arguments here:
Moreover, I am not talking about a belief in a deist creator god, who is not involved in the affairs of this world. I am talking about the total opposite of that kind of creator. I am talking about the Creator, who wishes to be and is very much involved in what is going on here. It’s just that for the most part we are unaware of it or are unwilling to allow him to be involved.
You see, he so wishes to be included in all of our activities, and so for that reason, has endeavoured to communicate with us in order to relay to us what his designed will and purpose for us is, and to try to get us to trust him and thereby collaborate with him in accomplishing it.
It is for that reason that he has endeavoured to make sure that his message would be passed on from one generation to another by having it first written down into what we now call the Bible.
Now, I realise that there are many competing religions, but I am convinced that there is no one in our recorded history who has ever lived the kind of life that Jesus lived. In spite of what the critics and the sceptics have tried to disprove about his life and his teachings, as recorded in the Bible, there is ample reliable evidence to confirm Jesus’ historicity, and especially do do with his death and resurrection. It is this historical fact that makes him the only possible candidate worthy of our worshipful devotion. Much has been written and discussed about this issue and so for this reason I will not address it any further.
With the above in mind, are you aware that you are in this world for a reason, and that you are not an accident? Do you know that you were created for a purpose? I know I was! Moreover, I know why you and I are here, and I am convinced that I understand why we are not living in the kind of a world that I have described and would desire to live in. It is because we do not know and/or properly understand the purpose behind why we exist or we choose to reject it as being true.
I contend that if we truly understood and embraced who we really are, we would be better able to live our lives right. By having an erroneous belief about oneself, it will set one on a course to making unwise even harmful decisions — even fatal ones.
There is a way that seems right to a person, but eventually it ends in death. — (Proverbs 14:12)
Since wisdom is generally not found amongst the young, but among the aged amongst us, would you not agree, therefore, that God, having always existed, if there were one thing that he would definitely be, it would be wise? Surely therefore, there can be no better way for us to make wise decisions than to listen to and learn from someone who is wise before making them?
A stubborn fool considers his own way the right one, but a person who listens to advice is wise. (Proverbs 12:15)
For this reason, I concluded the blog: In The Beginning… Reflecting on our origins by asking the following questions, which many of us have pondered, and which I will endeavour to discuss: Why did God create us? What was his purpose for doing so? And likened to those questions, what, if anything, is his purpose for us that we ought to be concerned about?
In order to discuss this issue, I am gong to use the below film to illustrate the point that I am convinced is relevant in my discussion.
Some time ago, I took my then two primary school daughters to watch Minions. With all of the media hype at the time about the movie, it was a great treat for them, and it turned out to be for me too for the same reason as them, for it was an enjoyable movie to watch, and for the following reason as well. Not long into the movie, I got the impression that God was saying that the minions are very much like what we humans are like — but not completely. It was when I heard the following thing from the narrator that I had this impression from him:
“They (the minions) are all different, but they all share the same goal: to serve the most despicable master they could find. Making their master happy was the tribe’s very reason for existence…Years passed, as the minions forged their own civilisation, they truly made a life for themselves, but something just wasn’t right! They felt empty inside. Without a master, they had no purpose.”
Like I said earlier, I believe we are in a certain sense like the minions, but not completely. At least we shouldn’t be! Unlike them, we are more often than not unaware of why we are in this world, and we generally do not like being told what to do, though we should be okay with the idea, if we are being told by someone in authority who has our best interests to heart and is totally trustworthy and wise.
Moreover, most of us would not naturally choose or desire to serve an evil “master” or boss and his or her cause or purpose, and we wouldn’t do so unless we had no choice in the matter, but that is exactly what most of us do anyhow! And that is the reason why we are living in a world where there is so much injustice and why most of us are not living the meaningful and purposeful lives that we long to live and are supposed to live.
Furthermore, unlike the minions, we generally would not ever consider the reason for our very existence as being to make our “master” happy. If we could, we would rather not have any “master” at all, but to be our own masters. In what way, therefore, are we like the minions? To answer that question I need to discuss the following question:
Who are you and why are you here?
Like I said earlier, your answer to this question will have tremendous implications on how you will live your life, for it is dependent on whether the world view you believe in is theistic; whether you see the world as having been created by God, and that you are here by design. If you do not believe that, then you are already building your life on the wrong foundations (or presuppositions). It is my conviction that without God’s input in your life, your house is only going to come crashing down when the elements around it become hazardous.
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on ( Lit does) them , may ( Lit will) be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. 26 Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on (Lit do) them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell — and great was its fall.” (Matthew 7:24–27)
I am sure that you are already aware that since we humans are naturally purposeful , God must also by necessity be purposeful. Remember, if God weren’t to exist, how could we possibly exist? So, with that in mind, I submit to you, it could never be possible for us to be purposeful, if God wasn’t himself. It stands to reason, how could contingent and created beings like us or the effect be greater than their Creator or the Cause (God)? How could we be what God is not?
Moreover, I contend that whatever God’s attributes are, we, as contingent, created beings, must also by necessity have them as well, and so logically that is the reason why we must know and understand what God is like. By knowing and understanding what God is like, we will have a revelation of what we are meant to be like as well.
So, as you read on, I ask you to reflect on the way we humans customarily are like and compare them to the way God is described in the Bible. I then ask you to compare the way we customarily tend to be like in this world with the way the Bible says we are supposed to be like, to see whether there is any validity in suggesting that the reason why we are having so many problems and why there is so much suffering and injustice in this world, is because we are not living according to how God has truly designed us to live, namely with God’s relational input in our lives.
Moreover, I ask you to consider the reason that is the case is because what we choose to believe and think about our own existence is not consistent with actual reality, because we do not typically consider that he exists in the first place, let alone believe, accept, or acknowledge that we were created for God and that he is totally trustworthy and good, and so we haven’t naturally welcomed or looked for any input from him.
This belief and consequential lifestyle, as depicted by the below image, is in direct contrast to what Rene Descartes once said:
You see, who we choose to listen to will influence the kind of people we end up becoming, for as I discussed in my blog: In The Beginning… Reflecting on our origins, the reason why we think is because we were endowed with the ability by God and not due to a naturalistic process devoid of God.
The problem is because of the false humanistic assumption of God’s non-existence or irrelevance, we have unwittingly chosen to not listen to him and so we end up progressively failing to fully live our lives as we ought because we do not welcome or accept his input.
You see, if a correct understanding of our relationship with God is omitted from what is taught at school (as the above image illustrates), at home or at any social club like the Scouts, good as they are at what they do, what we end up passing on to each ensuing generation is at best incomplete if not completely erroneous.
Therefore, if we do not want to continue missing the mark in how we live our lives, we need to have God’s input. If we do not want to continue to fall short of God’s glorious designed standard for us, it is imperative that we know and understand who God is — what he is like — and what he would, as a consequence, expect of us. This is what I will examine in Living your life according to design! Parts 2–6: What is God like?, starting with Part 2 here:
