A Life Well Lived

We all struggle from time to time with the numerous difficulties in living life on a daily basis. One day while driving I was listening to a program on the radio and they were discussing this very issue. One of the guests on the show commented that the hardest thing about life is that it’s daily. I thought, hmm… This is so true. How often do we have such a tough day that we seem to just barely make it and then realize we have to get up again tomorrow morning and do it all over again? Life has a way of beating up on us, wearing us down, and then….. and then we have to keep doing it.

Sometimes it is difficult just to get out of bed. David experienced this. Many of his Psalms reflect his struggle with daily life and his feeling as if nothing ever changes. “How long, Oh Lord?” But David always closed these Psalms with a statement that regardless of how he feels he will trust in God. How was he able to do that? Did he just say that to try and comfort himself or did he really believe that?

Clearly David knew that God was trustworthy. How did he know that? He knew that because he knew God. He knew God’s character and God’s history of being faithful to His people. The Bible tells us that David was a “man after God’s own heart.” Ever wonder what it means to be a man after God’s own heart?

Jesus was asked once by some very religious leaders of the day who were trying to trick him, what was most important in life. He responded immediately and said that loving God with all your heart, mind, and soul was most important. He then added that loving others as we love ourselves was second most important. Why would Jesus feel the need to add a second most important thing when they only asked for the single most important? Clearly this has significance.

I believe He is saying that loving God and loving others is equally important but one can’t love others unless he loves God first. In order to love God we must know Him. This means we need to spend time getting to know who He is, how he feels about things, His motives, His thoughts, His character, His heart.

The Bible tells us that we are created in God’s image. And it tells us that Jesus is the true image of God. So then it seems that knowing Jesus would be the most important thing we can do to know God. We get to know Jesus by reading about Him and learning about His thoughts, His motives, His morals, His heart.

I believe that being created in the image of God makes us relational at the core. So then it appears that Jesus, in saying that loving God and loving people is most important, is saying that if we miss this one truth, then nothing else really matters. Further, Jesus asks us to depend on Him daily for our needs. There is that word “daily” again. David evidently knew this truth and he wasn’t afraid to say how he was feeling. Yet David always relied upon the solid truth of who God is to sustain him even though he was feeling alone and abandoned.

Learning to love is essential according to Jesus. Over the next several weeks I will be writing more about learning to love God and others. This truth is the foundation of the Christian faith. Not because it is what I believe, but because it is what Jesus said was most important. And this truth is what gives us the strength to live life “daily” regardless of what is going on around us.

Written by Larry Navey, L.C.P.C.