A LIFE OF SIGNIFICANCE (4)

“I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well” – Psalm 139:14

The Answer to the growing malaise of meaninglessness in today’s world, is the revelation and reality of a LIFE of SIGNIFICANCE: “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well” (Psa.139:14). In this psalm David testifies of how God made him – and every other human being – with dignity, significance, and worth. God values us so much He gives us personal attention (vv.1-2); acquaints Himself with all our ways and words (vv.3-4); keeps us perpetually in His Presence (vv.5-9); leads and holds us Hand-to-hand through darkness and light (vv.10-12); formed, knew, and predestined us from the womb (vv.13-16); and has precious and plentiful thoughts about us: “How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!” (v.17).

The Light of Purpose speaks to this most critical issue of our day – the Dignity and Worth of Humanity. In our modern civilization of Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality, machines are replacing humans. Incredible technological feats have taken authority away from the individual and vested it in huge impersonal institutions. For many, reality is no longer their own lives, but what they see transmitted in living colour across the electronic screen in their living room, laptop, I-pad, I-pod, and other devices. The virtual has become more real than the tangible. Contemporary technocracy has left humanity feeling alienated, helpless, and impotent.

Concurrently, forces of humanism are rising, voicing the notion that man has no ultimate purpose beyond living for the moment; who we are and what we do, have no absolute meaning! So why not do whatever we want – or nothing? If life is without meaning, so is the individual. This loss of meaning, purpose, and dignity is the mounting malady of our times, depicting the overwhelming spiritual bankruptcy of society. The ultimate and sane response is the Christian worldview which reveals that humankind is created in the Image of God and that, while empires will fall and machines rust away, our souls are eternal (Gen.1: 26-28). Man is a Living Soul (Gen. 2:7).

In addition to our wonderful creation, for Believers in Christ, the Redeemed of the Lord, Life is not meaningless and Man is not without worth! Christ died on the cross that He might live in and through us, and we live with Him eternally. God made each of us for a purpose. We must see ourselves – and one another – in light of the significance and dignity He gives us. Then, we’ll become witnesses and models for a world desperately yearning for meaning. Modern man has an aching void, an emptiness that cannot be relieved by position, possessions, or pleasures. The hunger for significance and quest for dignity must transcend the trivial to the ultimate questions of our worth as human beings.