MORE MEANING

More Meaning in Life-

"Is this all there is?" Sometimes our lives can seem pretty meaningless. Highway workers repair roads knowing they will wear down and need new repairs again in a few years. Doctors cure a patient's cancer only to watch her die from something else. We dust the furniture, vacuum the rugs and mop the floors, knowing they will all get dirty again.

So much in our life seems like pointless, useless repetition. That's what King Solomon meant when he wrote the second verse of his book "Ecclesiastes":
"Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless."

We'd all like to make this world a better place, but for all our efforts so little really changes. Consider how meaningless Jesus' earthly life appeared to be. He preached in a backwoods, frontier part of the Roman Empire. He drew large crowds but many of them turned away when His teachings offended them (John 6:66). Jesus died in His youth in what seems to many to be a meaningless death. And even today, you can ask what big changes His life and death brought to the world? There is still disease and death, there is still crime and sin, war and death. On the surface it looks like nothing really changed as a result of Jesus' earthly life.

But that is only judging by appearances. Jesus' resurrection proves that He is the victor over death and the grave. He has broken the devil's stranglehold on mankind and on the Last Day He will return to punish the devil and restore His creation to perfection. That's when the true impact He has made on this world will be made clear- as will the true meaning of your earthly life. Apart from Jesus' life, death and resurrection all our lives are meaningless and our destiny is unending destruction in hell. But Jesus took your sins on Himself and suffered your hell for you. His forgiveness gives you life, and His life gives meaning to yours.

The key to finding meaning in your life is to remember that God accepts and loves you for Jesus' sake. Then stop looking at the big things you do and focus instead on the impact of the little things God does through you. Jesus once told a parable,
"With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade." (Mark 4:30-32)

Your life will look meaningless if you only look for the impact of the big things you do. Instead you need to look at the powerful impact of the little things you do.

For instance, consider a ninety year-old man living in a nursing home. He may be so weak and frail he can't even feed himself. So a worker has to sit by his side and hand-feed him. What impact could he possibly make in this world? None if you are looking for big things- but take a moment to look at the little things he can do. What things you may ask? How about a word, a smile, even an attitude?

Think of the difference it makes for that worker's mood whether our man is pleasant and appreciative, or grumpy and mean instead! When that worker goes home with his mood changed by our man, what impact does his changed mood have on his family members? The next morning what impact might those family members have when they go out to work, to school or into the community?

Ripples spread in all directions from the little things we do and say, little things which can make a huge impact for good or for ill.

If you want your life to be meaningful, consider the little things you do. That's all part of God's plan and His decision to put us where He chooses for us to live and work and play. Solomon found that truth when he wrote (Ecclesiastes 2:24-25),
"There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?"