Meaning and Purpose – True Success and Significance

I have been recently studying, reflecting, and praying along two parallel streams of thought. First, I have approached the conclusion of a four-year study of the worldviews of the Western world. I have studied the writings of many of the great thinkers in the history of man. I have traced the course of western thinking from the Greeks and the Romans to the Renaissance of southern Europe to the Reformation of northern Europe to the founding of a nation on principles rooted in the absolute truths of Christianity to the rejection of those truths in favor of the arbitrary whims of naturalistic humanism. At the same time, in a second stream of thought, I have been reflecting on my calling, my purpose: how do I strive for significance in God’s eyes rather than success in man’s eyes? I believe that I am more than a collection of molecules driven by a complex, biochemical computer that is deterministically governed by fixed laws of nature; the entity I call myself is not limited to the material world that we can see, touch, and measure. I believe in the supernatural, including a good and active Creator who has created me in His image. Believing that God has a purpose for my life gives me a sense of meaning. Without that belief, I would descend into nihilism, a hopeless existence trapped by the conflict of a self-aware entity that exists by chance as the most advanced machine yet to exist in this part of the vast universe. To escape that nihilism, I would probably choose the drugs of the 21st century: fame and fortune. I would try to drown my feelings of meaningless in hyperactivity, running from one activity to the next, keeping so busy that I do not have time to ask why I am so busy. I would strive to earn more so I can buy more so I can distract myself more. In addition, I would avoid thinking about the future, because the future for that life ends with a mass of chemicals no longer driven by a complex, biochemical computer.

In light of these streams of thought, as my oldest child approaches the end of his high school career, I am reminded of the attitude I inherited from the culture of the 1980s: Why go to college? To earn a degree that will enable me to earn more money. Why earn more money? To enable my children to go to college. This circular reasoning, a significant factor in the guidance I received as a young person, is inherently flawed. While education itself is not a bad thing – it is a good thing – my personal meaning and purpose for existence can and should be so much more than striving for personal peace and affluence. The search for personal peace and affluence leads to pessimism for the thinking person or continuous entertainment and amusement for the person who chooses distraction over nihilism. What do I hope my children will answer if asked for their reason for attending college? Likewise, what drives me to continue to learn and grow and strive for something bigger than myself? “To fulfill my calling from God, a vocation in which I work because I love Him and I love others, a role wherein I feel God’s pleasure as I serve him and others using the particular gifts He has given to me.”

What is Love?

What is love? In recent years, wise men have said, “Love’s not a feeling.” However, can the love of a man for a woman or a woman for a man be love if it has no feeling? I think not. Emotions are a gift from God. Even before the Fall, Adam expressed strong emotions about Eve. When Adam first saw Eve, he said,

“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”

The NIV sets this text apart from the surrounding prose as if this is not just a sentence; these lines are presented as a poem. The ESV translates the first line of this poem, “This at last…” It seems that Adam was announcing, with an exclamation point and even a sense of both relief and excitement that, finally, God had provided a truly suitable partner. Because of God’s provision of Eve, Adam may have uttered the first love poem from a man to a woman. Clearly, God wired us to have passionate feelings about our spouses.

While passion is important, I believe that life includes various phases where God works in our hearts and lives in different ways, focusing on some aspects of our soul rather than others. Perhaps a season of passion in a husband-wife relationship may be followed by a season of intellectual growth, for example. Regardless, our love must follow Christ’s pattern, in which his love ultimately fulfilled the law (Rom. 13:10). Christ’s love led to giving his life out of love for his people. Likewise, the husband must in essence lay down his life for his wife, and vice-versa. How? Before he gave his life, Christ taught that the law can be boiled down to two commands: love God and love others. Clearly, such love is expressed in a multitude of ways, by various means, in a relationship. Effective love for others is positive, encouraging, and helpful: “…love builds up." (I Cor. 8:1)

The Apostle Paul also teaches, “Let love be genuine…” (Rom. 12:9) Our world is filled with illegitimate love. The media promotes love of an image rather than true love for a person. Adolescent infatuation and unashamed lust have been substituted for the selfless love of the Bible. These are not true love and are devices used by the kingdom of darkness to prevent and destroy God-centered marriages.

Better than Eden?

In describing the future state of heaven, the prophet Isaiah teaches in Isaiah 25:8 that "he [God] will swallow up death forever." This prophecy suggests a situation superior to that of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In their original state, the possibility of sin existed. God provided a forbidden tree. However, the book of Revelation only mentions a tree of life (Rev. 2:7; 22:2, 14, 19). Since death will be swallowed up forever, there will no longer be a path to destruction.

Why did God choose to offer an option to sin in the original Creation, and why does He not do the same in heaven? I think the difference is grounded in love. God loves man, and He wants man to love him. The Bible teaches that we love God by our obedience: "If you love me, you will obey what I command." (John 14:15) In the original creation, God needed to give man a choice that that man could love God. Without a choice, man could not love God because obedience would not be possible. Sadly, man chose himself over God. However, this was part of God's bigger plan to love man in spite of man's rejection of God. Although man rejected God, God responded by giving up His Son. This is the ultimate act of love: "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)

In the new heavens and earth, the only people that will live with Christ for eternity will be those who have made the choice, by God's grace, to obey Him. Having already chosen to love God, they do not need to be offered yet another choice. Rather, their love will be complete. Death will be swallowed up forever. There will be no more tears.

The Sacrifice of Service

The following is an article from our family's annual Christmas newsletter. If you would like to read more articles like this and are not a current subscriber, post a comment or send an email with your request, and we'll send you one!

The Hickman family has been making a real effort to give time in service to others. Sometimes, they end up giving more than they planned. This past summer, Sarah, Dan, Luke, and Leah all worked in their church’s 3-year-old Sunday school class. One Sunday, three of them failed in body fluid management. During story time, one of the children sat on Dan’s lap for assistance and guidance in paying attention and sitting still. This student still wore Pull-Ups as a precaution, although Dan quickly realized that this safety net was being used as more than a precaution. This child had pushed his superabsorbent polymer to beyond its saturation point. The result? A soggy patch on Dan’s pants, just above his right knee. Later, Sarah was comforting a weeping little girl, holding her as she cried on her shoulder. Later, in the church service, Dan noticed that the tears on Sarah’s solid navy blouse had dried, depositing a dried film of snot. That same morning, Luke was proud to show off his medal of honor: smears of blood on his khaki shorts. Undaunted by their mutual contamination, Sarah continued in her role into the fall. She was the storytelling teacher, occasionally misunderstood by the wide-eyed toddlers. For example, a teacher in the second hour recently informed Sarah that, following Sarah’s lesson on John the Baptist, complete with visual aids that included desert flora, the children continued during the playtime to recount the adventures of the prophet in the wilderness known as “John the Cactus.” Note to be outdone, but absent from the body fluid super-Sunday because she was on a summer youth trip, Leah took her turn later that week. As a helper at the American Red Cross Safety Town for pre-kindergartners, Leah missed the announcement of the recent unplanned release and subsequent clean-up. Apparently, a child had sprung a wee-wee leak, which was cleaned and followed with a puddle of sanitizing fluid. Later, Leah entered the area and sat squarely in the puddle of sanitizer.

Vitamin D for Back Pain

For about 9 months in 2009, from April to the end of the year, I suffered from a continuous, nagging lower back pain. It was as if I awoke one day with a new condition, a chronic problem that would continue for the rest of my life. I could no longer sit for more than a few minutes on our soft, cushy couches in our family room. The task chairs at our computer desk were suddenly awful.

I immediately ramped up my physical exercise routine, adding an entire stretching regimen. Surprisingly, that made little difference. Suddenly, I was unable to do certain activities without significant consequences. Raking or shoveling would set me back several days with a very stiff lower back. Running, even jogging, a short distance led to significant pain and limitation of mobility and flexibility. I was exasperated. Months of effort to resolve my problem had passed, with no solution. Was I destined to suffer this way for the rest of my life?

When December arrived, I noticed that we still had a supply of multivitamins that was not being used. With the winter before me, I decided to strengthen my immune system by taking a multivitamin daily. Within a few days to a couple weeks, my back pain magically disappeared. Then, I stumbled upon an article that claimed that declared vitamin D to be the "new supervitamin."

Apparently, more than one study has shown a correlation between low vitamin D levels and back pain. A simple Internet search makes this case. My experience agrees.

Our "Faith" Story

This post will be a lot longer than usual. Today, Sarah and I gave a five-minute "testimony" in church about the priorities in our home over the past 17 years. The text of that speech is below in its entirety.

Recently, during a dinner table conversation, we were reflecting on our transition from the innocence of youth to a more complete awareness of the responsibilities of adulthood. For us, this happened around the age of thirty, coincidentally with the arrival of our second child. In many ways, this eye-opening transition was a realization of our personal call to make our entire lives an act of worship of our Creator. Today, we would like to share our passion for a lifestyle of worship in our home.

We have attended this church since 1994. We have two high schoolers, Luke and Leah. Our story is one of God’s faithfulness and our human, imperfect efforts to be obedient to His Word.

You may recognize me as the guy who sometimes plays the piano or keyboard on Sunday mornings. You may be thinking, “We can’t ‘do’ worship in the home – I don’t have the musical skills.” Before you tune out (pun intended), we want to be clear: worship is not just singing songs of praise. While we certainly can and should worship God using His wonderful gift of music, this is only one element among many facets of a lifestyle of worship.

Jesus commands us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:30) He labeled this as the most important commandment. How do we do this? In our experience, parenthood confronted us with the practical challenge of creating an environment where worship of God is more than an ideal, where we truly love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

A key component of our worship at home during the preschool years was turning off the TV and memorizing scripture instead. You might be thinking, “Wait a minute! I thought you were talking about passionate worship in the home, not teaching and training children. Instead, you speak of turning off the TV and memorizing scripture.” Remember the most important commandment? Jesus was quoting the writings of Moses, inspired by God. In Deuteronomy, where God commands us to love Him with all our heart, soul, and strength, the very next verse commands us to keep His commandments in our hearts. We are to impress them on our children, to talk about them when we sit at home and when we walk along the road, when we lie down and when we get up. We are to write them on the door frames of our houses and on our gates. So, our worship is expressed in our keeping and memorizing of His commandments.

One thing we learned is that you cannot start too soon. When Luke was four and Leah was two, we thought we were drilling him on a particular verse when she chimed in with her cute two-year-old voice. We soon discovered that, if we fill a child’s mind with scripture early, he will be better equipped to filter the trash that this world will try to dump into his mind. Then, as he matures, he will be able worship God with all of his thoughts.

In our home, worship included a lot of planned family time focused on teaching our kids some scriptural principle. Over the years, the how and what have varied as our kids have grown, but the purpose has been the same: fulfilling our commission as parents to talk about these things when we sit at home, when we lie down, and when we rise up. We pray together, we read the Bible together, we read good books aloud together, and we sing together. Two very important decisions we made along the way included observing the Sabbath in our home and teaching the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

Dads, my commitment to this was important. I remember realizing as a young father that I needed to figure out how to switch gears from my current R&D project to my family worship leader responsibility during my 10-minute drive home. But, how and when was I going to choose the right devotional, plan the scripture memory program, or decide on the next family worship activity? In our case, this is where the power of teamwork between husband and wife plays a big role.

Moms, I worked hard to become my husband’s helper. I was careful not to usurp his role. I didn’t do his job, but I made it easy for him to succeed. I left that devotional book on his chair at the dinner table. I took care of the laminating for those shower verses. I worked with the kids to memorize and review their scripture verses and their catechism answers.

If you feel challenged but ill equipped, rest assured that we did not start this process with a host of programs and activities in place. Rather than being overwhelmed with the concept of making our home a place of worship 24/7, we took one step at a time. Every 6 to 12 months, we would merely add one new worshipful practice to our family’s schedule. In some cases, we would eliminate one activity or commitment to make room for another one. Once we established a pattern of obedience in that one small thing, we would take the next step.

We are thankful that God has chosen to reveal His will to us through His Word and through godly counsel in the form of mentors and good books. Looking back, our lives are pointed in a very different direction than where we started. Yet, there was no single event, no single decision, that led to a drastic change. Rather, God worked in our lives through the successive accumulation of small but important choices and decisions. Soon, our kids will be on their own. It is our prayer that God will continue to build on the foundation of His Word in their families so that their children will teach their children to live a life of worship to our God.

In closing, we want to encourage you to be purposeful in choosing an attitude and lifestyle of worship in your home, regardless of your family situation and personal giftedness. We can safely say that it is never too late to start choosing to worship God every day.

Theological Existentialism

I’ve been reading some of Francis Schaeffer’s writings lately, as well as a few chapters in Sire’s The Universe Next Door. These authors have helped me better understand the views of a variety of people in our culture. As I understand it, the theological existentialist builds an impenetrable barrier between the rational world, which includes science and history, and faith. The secular existentialists like Sartre, Camus, Jaspers, and Heidegger recognized that a system based solely on a naturalist worldview (i.e., the supernatural does not exist) leads to pessimism and ultimately nihilism. Unwilling to live with the depression and hopelessness of this worldview, each of these men sought optimism and hope in something removed from the rational world of logic and reason. However, because we are rational beings, none of their irrational sources of hope has proven to be effective for the masses.

Unfortunately, rather than discard the existential system, many theologians (like Karl Barth) tacked on faith as the source of optimism and hope for modern man. Consistent with the existential approach, these theologians rejected the traditional view that the Christian faith is a rational, reasonable faith. Instead, they chose to keep faith in a separate box, sheltered from the world of logic and reason. Thus, one could believe in the "Christian" God while claiming that the Holy Bible is filled with scientific and historical errors. The result is an irrational faith, one that is not based on revealed truth. In fact, such a faith denies truth as something that can be known. Rather, faith is defined at the personal level and is not founded on a set of propositions and historical events and figures. As I understand theological existentialism, Jesus Christ may have been a real person, but he was not really supernaturally raised from the dead. Miracles never happened. Rather, faith is some ill-defined hope in a God who cannot really be known other than through subjective, personal experience. I see no way to harmonize this view of God with the words of Jesus in John 14:6 (NIV): “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”