When I was teenager I often wondered, why am I here? What is the point of life? What will I become? What should I do with my life? These kinds of soul searching questions were aggravated by teachers, and counselors who made us teens do tests in school to discover our career paths or which Colleges we should consider. As early as 8th grade I remember doing such career oriented tests, as if finding the perfect job would give me a purpose and help me fulfill my entire life's mission. "You don't want to end up as garbage collector," one teacher told me, "you need to go to College so that doesn't happen."
For many years I agonized over this topic. Because I was raised Catholic I also desired to do God's will and asked Him many times in prayer, "God, what do you want me to do?" or "What purpose did you create me for?" In fact I still ask this of God occasionally, because I forget His answer. Last night, as a 30 year old, I asked God these questions again, as if He would have a new answer for me. Of course God never changes and His answer to me remained the same. But, I'm getting ahead of myself now, let me explain the first time God reveled to me, "the meaning of life" or the point and purpose for our whole existence here as the human race.
Since the time I moved away from my parents home to attend College, my life had turned into a downward spiral. I made mistakes in College by making poor moral choices as many College students do, and I had found myself in pit of self loathing, depression, and suicidal thoughts. On one particularly bad day, in which I collapsed on the floor of my apartment in a fit of self hate, I remembered the religion of my youth and I decided to go to the Church to see if I could find any help there. Once I arrived at the Church I made my way to the Adoration Chapel and just sat before the Lord. I didn't have any agenda or goals or even hopes really because I was empty, I came before the Lord as if I was nothing, because that is how I felt about myself, that I was nothing, with no purpose, no goals, no plans, and no point for living. That is when the Lord loved me. My guard was down, and I just sat open to God and allowed Him to do His work and He did! God allowed me to feel His love, I believe it was only the tiniest bit of His love that I felt because any more would overwhelm me, but it was awesome, in the truest sense of the word! Well once I felt the love of God I was hooked, and went back to that Adoration Chapel many times. A few times I felt the love of God again, but never as strong as the that first time, because God was slowly teaching me to love Him back. God normally remains hidden from us and our senses because He doesn't want us to love the way we feel when He loves us, He wants us to love HIM! It was only because I was in such an absolute low point in my life that He chose to allow me to feel His love as a way to draw me back to Him.
During one of these visits to the Adoration Chapel, I pleaded with God, asking Him why He created me and more importantly what did he want me to DO? I had asked this many times before as a teenager, but had never received an answer. This time I did receive an answer, as the thoughts of my coworkers and friends came into my mind and I realized Jesus told us the answer long ago, the answer is LOVE! My life's mission and the point of my life and lives of everyone on the planet it to learn to LOVE. To learn to love God and to learn to love people. That's it. It's that simple. But, oh how I don't want to believe that, it just doesn't make sense to me, how can the whole point of my life be summed up in one word? My teachers and mentors told me I had to find my purpose in life that was unique to me, the reason I was created, and it could be found based on my talents and my knowledge. But that is so complex and it lead to all kinds of endless searching and I never really know if I actually find my purpose or not. God tells me to Love, and if I can learn to do that I will be fulfilling the reason I was created.
On occasion I forget that the point of my existence is to love and I ask God again, "what do you want me to do?" The answer never changes. In fact I asked God this question just last night because I thought maybe now, that I'm 30 years old, the answer may have changed. After asking, I was reading the Bible, not looking for anything in particular, and guess what I happened to read? (Matt 22:37-40) He said to him, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments." The Lord reminded me again, this time using the Bible to communicate to me.
Obey the 10 Commandments
Jesus says one of the ways to love Him is to keep His commandments. (John 14:15) "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." We know He is talking about the 10 Commandments given to Moses because he also says, (Matt 5:17) "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill." The lists of the 10 Commandments can be found in the Bible. (Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5) Here is another list using today's terminology for what kinds of sins should be avoided in order to love God, all of which fall under the 10 Commandment's categories. (Sins List)
Take up Your Cross and Follow Jesus
The second way to love God is to take up your cross and follow Jesus. (Matt 16:24)
"Take up your cross" means to bear your burdens patiently and unite them to the Jesus' cross. For example if you have some kind of sickness or injury do your best not to complain about it, but pray asking God that the suffering you are enduing will be united to His suffering and used to help save souls. Or if you have some kind of an addiction, you should ask the Lord for the strength to fight against temptations to give in to the addiction and allow Him to remove it from you when it's time. People today do not generally have to take up a physical cross like Jesus, but everyone has other kinds of spiritual, emotional, or physical crosses. It could be a person at work who annoys you, a fear, or a habitual sin. Once we deal with one cross another one will likely take it's place. Don't allow these crosses to overcome us, but love God despite these crosses.
"Follow me" means do your best to follow where the Lord is leading you. That means putting your own will last and God's will first. We know that part of God's will is to keep the commandments as above, so even if it is easier or more convenient to tell a "little white lie" don't choose what you want, choose what God wants and don't lie, even if it's the more difficult option. Following Jesus often means being aware of God's will in the moment. Don't be focused on regrets from the past or worries for the future, but live in the present. When you see a piece of trash on the floor, pick it up for God. When you see a stranger at the store, and you feel a prompting to talk to them or smile at them, do it! Try to choose the most loving action in each moment.
Trust God
Trust God, this is third and final way I'm going to talk about how to love God. There are certainly more way to love God, but these three are a good starting point.
Trusting God means truly seeing him as your Father. Even if you do not have a loving father here on Earth, you do have a loving father in Heaven. God the Father is the best most perfect father. Since His is The Father we must think of ourselves as His children no matter how old we are. We are very small and weak compared to Him and nothing we have truly belongs to us but belongs to our Father. Just as human children are dependent on their parents for everything, food, clothes, shelter, we as adults are dependent on God for everything. You may say to yourself, I worked hard for my home, my food, and all that I have I did it by myself! That is not actually true, you were given a body that is capable of working, you were given a mind that is capable of learning, you were given oxygen to continue breathing so you could continue working. We are, in fact, totally dependent on God's gifts to simply exist. So trust in God. If you are in need of something, ask God. If you have received something, thank God. If you must make decision, ask God for His help first, then make the decision. Trusting God is making an effort to include Him in your life and trust in His love and mercy for you.
For many years I agonized over this topic. Because I was raised Catholic I also desired to do God's will and asked Him many times in prayer, "God, what do you want me to do?" or "What purpose did you create me for?" In fact I still ask this of God occasionally, because I forget His answer. Last night, as a 30 year old, I asked God these questions again, as if He would have a new answer for me. Of course God never changes and His answer to me remained the same. But, I'm getting ahead of myself now, let me explain the first time God reveled to me, "the meaning of life" or the point and purpose for our whole existence here as the human race.
Since the time I moved away from my parents home to attend College, my life had turned into a downward spiral. I made mistakes in College by making poor moral choices as many College students do, and I had found myself in pit of self loathing, depression, and suicidal thoughts. On one particularly bad day, in which I collapsed on the floor of my apartment in a fit of self hate, I remembered the religion of my youth and I decided to go to the Church to see if I could find any help there. Once I arrived at the Church I made my way to the Adoration Chapel and just sat before the Lord. I didn't have any agenda or goals or even hopes really because I was empty, I came before the Lord as if I was nothing, because that is how I felt about myself, that I was nothing, with no purpose, no goals, no plans, and no point for living. That is when the Lord loved me. My guard was down, and I just sat open to God and allowed Him to do His work and He did! God allowed me to feel His love, I believe it was only the tiniest bit of His love that I felt because any more would overwhelm me, but it was awesome, in the truest sense of the word! Well once I felt the love of God I was hooked, and went back to that Adoration Chapel many times. A few times I felt the love of God again, but never as strong as the that first time, because God was slowly teaching me to love Him back. God normally remains hidden from us and our senses because He doesn't want us to love the way we feel when He loves us, He wants us to love HIM! It was only because I was in such an absolute low point in my life that He chose to allow me to feel His love as a way to draw me back to Him.
During one of these visits to the Adoration Chapel, I pleaded with God, asking Him why He created me and more importantly what did he want me to DO? I had asked this many times before as a teenager, but had never received an answer. This time I did receive an answer, as the thoughts of my coworkers and friends came into my mind and I realized Jesus told us the answer long ago, the answer is LOVE! My life's mission and the point of my life and lives of everyone on the planet it to learn to LOVE. To learn to love God and to learn to love people. That's it. It's that simple. But, oh how I don't want to believe that, it just doesn't make sense to me, how can the whole point of my life be summed up in one word? My teachers and mentors told me I had to find my purpose in life that was unique to me, the reason I was created, and it could be found based on my talents and my knowledge. But that is so complex and it lead to all kinds of endless searching and I never really know if I actually find my purpose or not. God tells me to Love, and if I can learn to do that I will be fulfilling the reason I was created.
On occasion I forget that the point of my existence is to love and I ask God again, "what do you want me to do?" The answer never changes. In fact I asked God this question just last night because I thought maybe now, that I'm 30 years old, the answer may have changed. After asking, I was reading the Bible, not looking for anything in particular, and guess what I happened to read? (Matt 22:37-40) He said to him, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments." The Lord reminded me again, this time using the Bible to communicate to me.
How to Love God
So since the whole point of life is to learn to love God and love other people, how do we do that? Well, it just so happens God also told us how to do just that.Jesus says one of the ways to love Him is to keep His commandments. (John 14:15) "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." We know He is talking about the 10 Commandments given to Moses because he also says, (Matt 5:17) "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill." The lists of the 10 Commandments can be found in the Bible. (Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5) Here is another list using today's terminology for what kinds of sins should be avoided in order to love God, all of which fall under the 10 Commandment's categories. (Sins List)
Take up Your Cross and Follow Jesus
The second way to love God is to take up your cross and follow Jesus. (Matt 16:24)
"Take up your cross" means to bear your burdens patiently and unite them to the Jesus' cross. For example if you have some kind of sickness or injury do your best not to complain about it, but pray asking God that the suffering you are enduing will be united to His suffering and used to help save souls. Or if you have some kind of an addiction, you should ask the Lord for the strength to fight against temptations to give in to the addiction and allow Him to remove it from you when it's time. People today do not generally have to take up a physical cross like Jesus, but everyone has other kinds of spiritual, emotional, or physical crosses. It could be a person at work who annoys you, a fear, or a habitual sin. Once we deal with one cross another one will likely take it's place. Don't allow these crosses to overcome us, but love God despite these crosses.
"Follow me" means do your best to follow where the Lord is leading you. That means putting your own will last and God's will first. We know that part of God's will is to keep the commandments as above, so even if it is easier or more convenient to tell a "little white lie" don't choose what you want, choose what God wants and don't lie, even if it's the more difficult option. Following Jesus often means being aware of God's will in the moment. Don't be focused on regrets from the past or worries for the future, but live in the present. When you see a piece of trash on the floor, pick it up for God. When you see a stranger at the store, and you feel a prompting to talk to them or smile at them, do it! Try to choose the most loving action in each moment.
Trust God
Trust God, this is third and final way I'm going to talk about how to love God. There are certainly more way to love God, but these three are a good starting point.
Trusting God means truly seeing him as your Father. Even if you do not have a loving father here on Earth, you do have a loving father in Heaven. God the Father is the best most perfect father. Since His is The Father we must think of ourselves as His children no matter how old we are. We are very small and weak compared to Him and nothing we have truly belongs to us but belongs to our Father. Just as human children are dependent on their parents for everything, food, clothes, shelter, we as adults are dependent on God for everything. You may say to yourself, I worked hard for my home, my food, and all that I have I did it by myself! That is not actually true, you were given a body that is capable of working, you were given a mind that is capable of learning, you were given oxygen to continue breathing so you could continue working. We are, in fact, totally dependent on God's gifts to simply exist. So trust in God. If you are in need of something, ask God. If you have received something, thank God. If you must make decision, ask God for His help first, then make the decision. Trusting God is making an effort to include Him in your life and trust in His love and mercy for you.
How to Love Others as Yourself
Love Yourself
Before you can love others you have to love yourself. For many years I struggled with this concept. I didn't think it was important or necessary to love myself. I even thought it was dangerous to love myself because it was prideful. So I preferred to hate myself and try to love others. Loving yourself does not mean thinking you are better than anyone else. Loving yourself is accepting the reality that you are a unique creation of God. You were made on purpose and not by any accident regardless of what your parents may tell you about your conception. The truth is, human are not capable to creating another person on their own. There are three "ingredients" needed to make a new person, egg, sperm, and soul. There is no life without the soul, which comes directly from God. So this means God purposefully created you out of the overflow of His love. In order to love yourself you must try to see yourself from God's perspective, as a person uniquely created in this particular time in order to love Him and the others here with you.
The thing is we are actually unable to love on our own. God is LOVE so all love comes from Him. To love ourselves we must allow God to love us. That means we should not say evil things about ourselves. We should not call ourselves ugly, or dumb, or worthless. To do so is to reject God's love and insult His creation. Instead we should call ourselves, beautiful unique creations of God, or priceless, or full of God's wisdom. If we feel lacking in some area or other we should ask God about it. We should pray, increase my knowledge, or increase my faith, or help me to see myself the way you see me. As long as the request will help you become the person God created you to be He will help you. He helps slowly though usually, so we don't become overwhelmed by a sudden change. The more humble we become in remembering that God is above us, the more He can give us. He doesn't give us good things if we are full of pride (by thinking we can do things without God's help or that we are better than others) or hate because that would harm us instead of help us.
Love Others
Once you have learned to love yourself you can begin to learn to love others. You can not do this beforehand. The reason is because God's love flows from God and is received by you and when you are full of God's love is starts gushing out of you and onto all the people around you. If you don't love yourself first then God's love flows to you but is not received by you so you are unable to love others. God's love never stop flowing to you though, so at any time you can receive it.
When we love other people we are really allowing God to love them through us. So we should not become prideful saying "See how many people I love!" rather we should give all the glory to God and recognize that any person we managed to love is because God's love poured out of us onto them.
We love people by serving them. In the Bible Jesus teaches his Apostles how to serve each other by washing their feet and says, (John 13:15) "I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do." This means we should not be afraid or think of ourselves too highly, but be willing to stoop low and serve each other even in the most menial of tasks. This could be helping someone who is sick, or tending the wounds of a child, or listening to someone's problems without interruption or complaint. Loving others is putting their needs above our needs.
Loving others is also another way to love God as Jesus explains in (Matt 25:31-46) "....Amen I say to you whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me..." This chapter in the Bible also gives us several other practical ways to love others, which are called the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.
What is the Point of it All?
Love. Love is the answer. Love takes work though, and a lifetime and even an eternity to fully understand. See (1 Corinthians 13:4-13) for more about what love is. Then remember when you're wondering what is the meaning of life? Love.
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