A life worth living, or not!

I lay in bed wide awake. It was 2am and I’d been out all night keeping my frustrated and troubled head as distracted and as preoccupied as I knew how. In fact, I had been out most nights for almost as long as I can remember, with the same futile agenda. It worked well at times, or so I thought, spending long hours with friends in insipid and pointless conversation, wasting away the time watching mind numbing movies or long sessions in front of the pc, allowing myself to slip into a world almost as virtual and as detached as the pathetic existence I had created for myself.

So there I lay, forced once again by the absence of my carefully planned escapades, to face the thoughts and questions which seemed so obliging at this time of night to keep me out of my very needed sleep! I was desperately tired and longed to slip into the usual bliss of dreamless sleep, but tonight, as many others, my restless head would not allow me that privilege. There were just so many unanswered questions and an endless, yet disjointed trail of conflicts from the many influences and experiences that had shaped my personality, my character, my ideals, my morals and ultimately, my current view of life. But the question which demanded the most attention on most nights like these was simply this: Why on earth am I here?

Ok, so this is the question that most of mankind has been asking ever since the first step of intelligent life on the planet. The thing that frustrated me the most about this question, as with most of the these tormenting thoughts, was that I knew all the right answers to most of them! In fact, I had spent many a night with close friends, delving into many of these pertinent questions and discussing them at great length, often giving hope and seemingly real answers to many of their frustrations and yet, here I was, unable to satisfy my own restless mind with the answers that I claimed to have. Yes, it gave me a fleeting sense of fulfillment knowing that I had given someone else the keys to the very doors which I longed to pass through, however, the reality of it all, was that seeing others find direction and meaning in life as a result of the insights that I claimed to possess only increased the depth of my own dilemma. At this point, however, I would need to retrace a couple of steps in my own life, in order to expose the gravity of the question in my current situation.

I grew up in a healthy, loving home, a stable family life, a vibrant childhood, a good education, a kaleidoscope of natural abilities and talents, a potential future of my choice and a lifelong legacy of good Christian influences and beliefs! Any normal person would have had a field day with the hand that I had been dealt! I had been sent off to a Christian school at the age of 7, and had been involved in church life since as early as I can remember. I had been exposed to hundreds, if not thousands of hours of good sound teaching on God, on what He did for us by sending His son to die for us and on various aspects of theology ranging from predestination, to life in the Spirit! I had heard it all, and just in case I hadn’t, I had read many a book on the deeper aspects of Christian life too. And yet, here I was, asking the question that anybody else in my shoes would have had sorted out by the time they hit puberty – Why on earth am I here?

Before I go any further, maybe this would be a good point to give the textbook answer to this question, after all I knew it all too well! It is this: I was put on planet earth because there is a God who wanted to have a relationship with me. So my primary reason for being here was to love Him back, get to know Him as a Father, a friend and a lover, and then secondly to share this fullness of life with as many other lost and hopeless souls as I possibly could! It seemed simple enough, and I did not for one minute doubt it, yet no matter how hard I tried, I could never seem to find that ‘fullness of life’ that so many others around me seemed to be experiencing! In fact, in so many areas of my life, the total opposite was true. Most importantly though, was the fact that I still faced the abominable question – Why on earth am I here?

So here I was, 30 odd years of age, having been given a life of opportunities which few others have had the privilege of, and yet, my life was a useless existence of internal torment! I felt trapped! I had been exposed to so much life and so much truth. I had rubbed shoulders with men and women who were living passionate and single minded lives in whole hearted pursuit after God! Yet, in all of this, I continued in a life caught between the person I knew I should be and the frustrated and futile efforts to become that! I sincerely had a heart that longed for God, longed for a deeper walk with Him and longed to live a life that counted, but all that I had to show was a life riddled with compromise, self centeredness, self indulgence and countless insecurities! There had been sporadic encounters of life, yet so few and far between, that time eroded all too quickly any trace of momentum in the right direction. The rest of my life was consumed by an attempt to fill my own life with whatever other cheap and sordid thrill I could find! The results of these attempts would invariably leave me feeling empty and in most cases, loaded with guilt and shame! I longed for life! I longed for God! I longed to be able to answer the question – Why on earth am I here?

It got to the point where I would find myself angry with God. Why had He made me? It wasn’t fair! I hadn’t asked to be created, yet here I was, and now I was stuck between the only two options available – either turning my back on God, and having a reckless blast, ending in eternal pain and suffering or choosing God, and being stuck to live a morbid, boring, lifeless existence, forever battling between what I know I should be and the useless pathetic state I found myself in! Let me say it again, I was trapped and I hated every second of it! Oh, I had gone for help! I had spent many a wretched hour with all sorts of wise people all offering me the same useless textbook answers that I already knew! I had cried out in desperation to God to get me out of the hole that I was in, and each of those times, He had simply yanked the door of the cupboard open, only to expose to the world my sick and rotting skeletons! In each case I had been stripped naked and hung on a pole for my unsuspecting friends and family to stare at in utter shock and horror! The shame and remorse that such incidents brought on were usually persuasive enough to evoke a response from me to get my life into gear for as long as I could sustain it, but before long, the edges of my newly defined attempts would start crumbling away! And so the cycle of my life would start all over again!

It would be 4am before I would drift off to sleep, exhausted and frustrated, my head still as muddled as the knotted duvet twisted around my legs and my pillow, drenched with the tears of a thousand emotions! Little did I know, that as I lay there asleep, I really did have a loving Savior, watching from far closer than I ever imagined, crying those same tears on my behalf, longing infinitely more than I could ever have longed for in return, to reach across the abyss that seemed to keep us apart and wrap His loving arms around me! It was only a matter of time, and that time was coming soon!