What is life? Victor E Frankl said, “For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.” Aristotle said, “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” For many years I have worked to ensure my life would be filled with “happiness”. We have a nice home, nice cars, family and most importantly, stability. My efforts, unto myself…or so I thought. Then God opened my eyes to His truth, and I am seeing things from a whole new perspective now.

John Piper, in his book, Don’t Waste Your Life, writes, “We waste our lives when we do not pray and think and dream and work toward magnifying God in all spheres of life.” I can tell you that I have been driven most of my life. I had in my mind the life I desired, what I would and would not tolerate, and I set out to obtain those things. Even in this blog, I wanted to get the word out of my writing, to gain followers, and attention and fame. But as John Piper writes, “We were made to see and savor God—and savoring him, to be supremely satisfied, and thus spread in all the world the worth of his presence.” I wanted to spread His word, but I wanted to be glorified in the process!

How easy is it to fall into this trap? My pride betrays me, and I am humbled when I see the magnitude of my errors. Where was I when God marked off the earth’s foundations? I challenge you to read Job 38-41 if you’d like to redefine your perspective. God is all powerful and our entire reason for being alive is to bring honor and glory to Him. I have spoken about my dad often in this blog and I have shared some of his struggles. I have come to understand him more as I have grown older, but his life is the cautionary story of a wasted life. Though he knew God and his many attributes, he chose to live his life under his own rules and his own desires. His life on earth did not reflect God’s glory—in fact it showed the opposite.

I want my life to be fruitful. At the end of my time on earth, I want to leave a mark! But it is no longer my mark I want to leave, but I want people to see God’s glory and Jesus’s love in my life. Will I be successful? That remains to be seen—but if I give all that I have to the Father, and keep my focus on who He is—my hope is that when I am gone, His Spirit will be among many I have had contact with. For I do not want to be like the fig tree that Jesus cursed, because it bore no fruit.

We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But now I see that my life is not about me and what I desire, but it’s really about His glory. How can I somehow be a small shard of mirror in this broken world that can reflect who God truly is? I ask you today to look at the many wonders of this world and then at yourself…who is your life reflecting today? Is it yourself—who you have made yourself to be? Or is it the supreme, all powerful, God of the universe—who with his very breath, breathed life into man and formed the worlds with his hands? I am going to choose to reflect Him and I hope that in some small way, His name is magnified through my small and insignificant life.