The Purpose of Life
ONE
What is the goal of your life?
Bob Beamon’s goal in life was to win an Olympic Gold medal in the long jump. He qualified for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. His first jump took just seven seconds from beginning to end. He tore down the runway, jumping so far that the electronic measurement system was incapable of calculating the jump’s distance. After measuring and re-measuring, the officials determined the jump was twenty-nine feet, two and a half inches. Beamon had jumped almost two feet farther than the previous world record. He collapsed to the track in a cataplectic seizure brought on by the emotional shock of his achievement.
Beamon had demolished his life goal. He was an Olympic gold medalist and a world record holder. His jump is considered one of the top five athletic achievements ever. Beamon should have been elated. The remainder of that day should have been one of the greatest of his life. But that’s not what happened.
In 2008, he remembered his celebration lasting only a few minutes. “When I got to the medal stand, I said, ‘what am I gonna do? I’ve reached one stage, and so what is the next peak experience in my life?’” Bob Beamon was totally let down once he achieved his lifelong goal. Why? He had the wrong reason for living. Or more specifically, he thought the purpose of life was achievement. It was his reason for existence, and his self-worth relied entirely upon his success.
What is the driving force of your life? What gives you value?
TWO
We value others for their achievement, talent, wealth, beauty, intelligence, and so on and so forth.
This is also how we rate ourselves. And in our own judgment we never measure up. Those who do measure up, we might admire but we also despise because they remind us that we don’t reach their level.
We’ve got it all wrong. None of those things are the measure of our worth or the reason for our existence. The first paragraph of the CCC tells us; “God, infinitely perfect and blessed in Himself, in a plan of sheer goodness, freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life.”
Our worth and the purpose of life is that we have been made in the image of God. That means God gave us the capacity to share in his divine life. And we are invited to become like God, called to actually participate in His divine life as His adopted son or daughter. Image means God gave you the potential. Likeness means you achieved it. You are by faith, grace, and baptism a son or daughter of God. That is your worth. You can’t add to it or earn it. It is a pure gift. But you can throw it away.
THREE
God delights in you.
CS Lewis says that the most important thing in life is not how we think of God. What matters is how God thinks of us. Therefore, he says we should strive “to please God, to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a son…”
God delights in you. Now delight in yourself!
God made you. He put His life in you. You are good. Have joy in the awareness of your goodness.
But don’t stop there. Rejoice in all the goodness around you and thank God, your Father for all of it. I should say; “Thank you Father for my existence, for another day to please you, for the opportunities to grow more like you today. Thank you Father for the warm house, clean water, food in my fridge and on my table, for a safe home and safe city. Thank you for the ability to learn, and achieve and to be in a relationship. Thank you for the beauty of the trees and sky and sun and this crazy dog.”
Because we were made for delight – but you still have to practice it!
FOUR
Whose praise do I seek?
What would be the goal of my life if I was the only person on the planet? Why, then my goal would be to please God my Father and to rejoice in the thing God made me to be.
We want to be the kind of sons and daughters that God can really delight in. We seek to please God, not humans.
We do not want to hear from God, “Depart from me, for I never knew you.”
We want to hear from our Father; "Well done, good and faithful son; you have shown you can be faithful in small things, I will trust you with greater; come and join in your Father’s happiness.”
Whose praise do you seek?
FIVE
Now we must take this a step further, not only knowing our own worth, but the worth of our neighbors. My true worth is that of a son of God.That is also the worth of every other person.
C. S. Lewis says;
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare… There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.