HOW’S YOUR SIGNIFICANCE TODAY?
By Richard Lineberry
Much time and energy is spent these days by educators of the young to try to persuade them that their lives are to be meaningful. It seems like the breakdown of families and absentee fathers is taking a great toll on us. Many people feel nothing but emptiness and worthlessness.
Our longing for significance doesn’t just hit us when we turn into adults. It’s inborn. The relationship with parents, family and friends help to satisfy it to some extent. Our vocation and daily activities add a little bit to the longing also. But we are more complicated than that.
Lasting significance at the deepest human level, however, can only be achieved through a close and loving experience with God. He didn’t create man from the dust and then say, “Ok, now go do your own thing.” We were made to have fellowship and friendship with this eternal Father in heaven. Animals can’t do it; only people are made for it. It takes time to develop but nothing else can take its place.
The popularity, wealth and fame the world offers is fleeting and temporary. Wealth can leave us in a moment. Having a famous name is short lived because people’s interests are short lived. Our inner desire to know that we are of eternal value goes beyond the physical realm and anything else the world can do for us.
God’s Son came to earth to remind us that we were important to the God that made us. We were not made for nothing or just to endure a miserable existence. Rather, His love and closeness produces a freedom and joy that nothing else can provide. In learning to commit ourselves to Christ and serving others as He did, all the need for significance you could have will take care of itself. Just try it!
The Apostle Paul gives us a great prayer that helps us draw closer to the God who gives significance.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. II Corinthians 13:14
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