Insights

The Vanity of Life


What vanity befalls Man that he can put his understanding before God ?

What knowledge is given him that he can claim answers without evidence?

What conceit possess Man that allows him to proclaim wisdom in the face of so much mystery?

This we know;

We are limited in understanding anything.

We can not do everything.

We make mistakes and act foolishly.

We are imperfect and flawed in mind and body.

We are not God.

The decision to believe in God is accomplished through reasoning with humility and an open searching heart.

The fear of God is the beginning of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.

How does the curious, analytical, critical mind of a scientist find God? How does the believing, obedient, submissive mind of a religious person address the contradictions presented by science? You do not find God by being defensive. You do not find God by letting emotions cloud reason. You do not find God by being judgemental to differences in the way you think, opposing purposes and alternate goals to skeptics. You are not at war with others, but are making a concious choice of belief in the evidence of creation by the design of God. The absolute truth is not revealed by scientific evidence, for or against, it is through revelation and Hope that you find the believing mind. It is believing in God that is the first step to finding salvation.

VANITY OF VANITY

O that we let the things of the world distract us from the things of God.

How the cares of life lead us astray from salvation to death.

We turn from truth to our foolishness.

Everything is without merit, but that which leads to God.

Pursuit of our desires consume our energy.

We serve self over God.

We seek pleasure, security and wealth to feed our insatiable need for excess.

Our perspective of values neglects the priority of God.

Our time and efforts put family, country, education, jobs, friendships, goals, entertainment . . . over God.

We place too much value on our finite life.

We live in a visible physical world and forget the eternal spiritual world of God.

We die putting faith in reason and live with belief in Christ.

We die a short sinful meaningless life without God and live eternally with redemption from sin and salvation from death with our belief in Christ.

The vanity of our pride and arrogance, leading to death, is saved by surrender to God's will.

DEATH

After spending a majority of a lifetime searching for the meaning and purpose of life, I realized that the significance of death is also important. As much as we value life, life is short and meaningless in relationship to the long history of the world and vast abundance and diversity of all life around us. How vain is the pursuit of pleasures, freedoms and security? How vain are goals and values that serve to feed our ego and self esteem? Is it an advantage to live your life to the fullest, to having the best, to doing the best, to being the best? In the end, death conquers all men and we are again dust.

Death is mysterious and inevitable. It negates our cherished accomplishments to only memories. It removes you from all the worldly things that you inherited and earned. It comes inconveniently and unwelcomed. It is the factor that, in contrast, makes life so valuable. It is your view of death that helps form your decisions of how you will live.

If you believe death is final all your existence is mostly wrapped in the fleeting time you are alive. The pursuit of value in your brief life is contingent on your self satisfaction, and/or the belief it's important to make a worthwhile contribution to loved ones or society. Since the sum total of your existence is your life, it is very important to make time count. To many it is best not to think about death. To most, life is so busy just living and surviving that it is easy to get distracted from wondering about death. Your life is finalized by Peggy Lee's song 'Is that all there is'?

If you believe that death is not final your attitude on the finite life you lead changes. Again, even believing, you may not want to think about it or become so busy that you don't think about it. However, if you believe in life after death, what you believe is important. As a Christian this is especially true because you must first believe in God and then believe in God's Son, Jesus Christ, to receive eternal life. There are many ideas and wishful thinking about how to define eternal life, but ultimately your belief is your truth. I found God through the reasonableness of a Creator, but finding 'The God' is through reason, inspiration, revelation and choice.

I searched and discovered my Creator in the wonders of creation.

I sought purpose and was given understanding and wisdom by my God.

His Word is my salvation from which I conquer death.

Immortality is a term like infinity that defies experience and comprehension. Death reveals the invisible spiritual world which is surrounded by the same mysticism as the conversion of inanimate elements to animate life. I receive every breath and heartbeat daily to live, but was not intimate with death until my son died and I grew older. The inevitability of death is often not evident until it's reality crashes down on your carefree, robust life. Death's significance over life is comparing mortality to immortality and finite existence to infinity. You spend a lifetime worrying about life and a twilight moment contemplating death. Death is the moment you appreciate the totality of your relationship to God. Faith is everything at the end.