What's the Point?

If you get to know me, you'll learn that I am pretty light-hearted. I don't take myself too seriously, love nothing more than playing in the backyard with my kids, and it doesn't take too much for me to have fun. I am a transplanted East Coaster who still roots for New York teams. But in reality, after being out here for 15 years, I have come to love the Midwest and don't plan on leaving. I love to laugh, love to have fun, and hope that comes across.

So with that being true, allow me to make my first post a really heavy one. This comes from the fact that last week, I spent the majority of my week helping a woman from our church whose husband died last Monday. He had been healthy, found out he had cancer at the end of February, and died in the first week of May. It was really fast and really hard to comfort the family because of how quickly it all went. 

When something like this happens, it forces you to wrestle with life and death questions and questions of eternity. It also causes us to ask what is the purpose and meaning of life, big questions to have to struggle with. 

We can get so caught up in our day-to-day issues of life that we go months and years without thinking about the big questions of life. Maybe we go to church, but in reality, we give it little thought and really are only there for the sake of our children. And then tragedy and death come out of nowhere and everything else seems meaningless as we consider the meaning of life. 

Have you had that moment where all the sudden, you find yourself with your family in the hospital and all that matters is what is going on in that room? In those moments, how do you answer those foundational questions of life? Where is your hope founded? In Matthew 7, Jesus talks about building our lives on the solid rock that can stand the storm rather than building it on sand that will collapse. 

Here is the point...our money, our jobs, our houses, our cars, our possessions and everything else temporary will not last past this life. And we fully get this when we are faced with the death of a loved one or when we face illness and death ourselves. 

So what is it that lasts? It is following Jesus, giving our lives to him, and allowing his priorities to be our priorities. It is to love our Lord with all our heart, mind and soul, and to love our neighbor as ourself. That is the key to finding meaning and purpose and the only thing worth giving our lives to. 

We'll try to make the next post about something like the NBA playoffs or why I dislike the Cubs, but I wanted you to know what is foundational for me, and I hope you come to the point where you give your life not to temporary things, but to things that last. I'd love to hear your opinions—feel free to share. Until next time...