Monday, August 13, 2018
613 - The Purpose of Asking, Part 1
Spirituality Column #613
August 14, 2018
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
The Purpose of Asking, Part 1
By Bob Walters
An old friend from back in my life when I spent no time
thinking about Jesus sent a YouTube video to me recently via Facebook Messenger.
This friend
knows I now spend a whole lot of time thinking about Jesus and thought I’d find
the sincerely stated and believable video “interesting.” The 10-minute YouTube piece (shot in 2005)
was testimony by a then-72-year-old man who six years earlier during incredibly
major and low-survivability heart surgery had a “near-death-and-met-God”
experience. Or maybe he met Jesus. Or maybe both.
But, he
survived the surgery and the point I want to make isn’t who he met, or the
theology of it, or the specifics of the surgery, or his life before, or how the
experience changed his life for the better … dramatically better, or if the
fellow is still alive, or, you may ask, why am I wasting my time on Facebook
and YouTube?
No, what
grabbed me immediately was the YouTube title: “This man died during surgery, met God & asked Him, ‘What’s the
meaning of Life?’” And wouldn’t we
all like to know the answer to that one?
From God Himself? “What is the meaning of life?” And to know God’s final answer, for real. Well, I just sighed and thought immediately,
“That’s the wrong question to ask.” And
I’ll tell you why.
In this life we are overly focused
on the “Me” in “Meaning.” When I insist
on knowing “meaning,” I’m hedging my bet.
I’m questioning the authority, trustworthiness, and intrinsic truth of
whatever and wherever that “meaning” originates. I want to know meaning for my sake, to
validate my “faith” or “truth,” and to know what’s in it for me.
The entire secular world grasps for
ultimate “meaning” it simply will not find outside of God and Jesus. And the fellow in the video, as he described
himself before the surgery, reminded me of me 20 years ago: more or less
believing in God and Jesus but never imagining “being religious.” And by “religious” I don’t mean “denominational”
or “churchified;” I mean “living my life as an ongoing action of faith in
Christ.”
“I believe but I’m not religious” is a
sentiment that an awful lot of the secular world errantly considers a theological
worldview rather than the heretical dodge that it actually is. Twenty years ago life’s grand “meaning” to me
meant only “How do I put myself at the center of everything?” Still,
I would have thought, “What’s the meaning of life?” to be a brilliant question
to ask God, not the naïve and self-serving puffery it is.
Nonetheless, I was certainly
interested to hear how God answered the question, which the man in the video related
thus: “God laughed and said, ‘The meaning of life is love; all love.’” Of course God laughed; it’s an easy
question. The man also cried because of
the love he felt during the conversation.
That’s why I think the “arms he felt” hugging him were those of Jesus,
whom God sent to express His unimaginable love.
But … the secular world gets the
“love” thing selfishly wrong all the time, too, i.e., it’s not about me. And we’ll discuss that – and a better
question to ask – next week.
Walters
(rlwcom@aol.com) is leery of near-death testimonies, but
felt-Godly-love is felt Godly love, Amen.
Here’s the video link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UAnySx2lHC8.
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