...For the rest of your life

In general, I must admit, I have a low opinion of facebook quizzes, surveys, and apps in general. This is not just because I no longer have time to do them but because they have such a tendency toward the utterly frivolous and irrelevant. Who seriously cares "Which Converse Color" you are, or if you are, in fact, a potato? Do any of us need to take a quiz to find out how old we are? Apparently there are too many people with an unlimited amount of time and curiosity, and so there will always be those who must try to determine who they were in a past life or what zombie they will become.

For all their downfalls, facebook quizzes, surveys, and apps do occasionally give one something of a more serious nature to think about. And when I say occasionally I mean very, extremely rarely. However, one of those rare occasions was a question that was on a facebook survey I was filling out.

Let me clarify. Actually, it was a question that was not on the survey I was filling out. The questions were basic and general, things such as "Where is the coldest place you've been," and "Which food describes you best," until I got to one that read: "Do you want to live for the rest of your life?" I chuckled...like I have an option. Then I noticed I'd missed the word "Where" on the above line at the other side of the page. "Where do you want to live for the rest of your life" was a much more understandable question, but it was the one I thought I read that stuck with me.

Is there some option other than living for the rest of our lives? The idea seems to have an inherent contradiction in terms. It seems there simply is no way to avoid living for the "rest" of our lives--not even a car accident or suicide can prevent us from being alive as long as we are alive.

I pondered the notion only briefly before I decided the question wasn't nonsense after all. As I thought quickly past the purely physical and literal approach to it, I suddenly sat back in my chair and turned to make a note on my bulletin board. Immediately I knew I would use it as an illustration in the future.

The thought that struck me so forcefully was how valid the necessary pretext of that question is--that it is possible to not live for the "rest of your life." I know it because I walk streets dotted with houses full of people living pseudo-lives, carrying out their existence more dead than alive. The quip "I hope life isn't a joke because I don't get it" is all too real to them.

This isn't a local concern, however; it's the chronic condition of the human race. If it wasn't, why would so many people chose suicide to end the charade? Why do we drive ourselves in the pursuit of anything and everything that offers to give us hope and meaning--to put "life" in our lives?

Before I turn this into an entire sermon, lecture, or thesis, I'll cut right to the point--the solution. It comes in the form of a Person. In Him, the Word, was life, and He came so that we might have life more abundantly--a life that is alive.

It should follow then that the degree in which we have Him and His word in us is the degree in which we will live...and I mean really live, in its truest sense. I love the way this author puts it:

"The Word of God contains our life insurance policy. To eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of God means to study the Word and to carry that Word into the life in obedience to all its precepts. Those who thus partake of the Son of God become partakers of the divine nature, one with Christ. They breathe a holy atmosphere, in which only the soul can truly live." (White, The Upward Look, pg. 78)

Did you catch that little qualifying word--truly? How much we truly live will be directly proportionate to the amount of "life" we choose to accept from the Word. There is a life that is not living, an existence that is not alive, but it doesn't have to be that way. There is another option, and it is found in Jesus.

So how about your life--do you feel 100% alive? Are there those days when you go through the motions, but you feel more mechanical than human? Has your life felt lacking in meaning, direction, purpose...and life?

Would you like to live for the rest of your life?