I recall a time when I was walking to class when someone I knew but have not spoken with personally before came up to me and after an intial greeting, asked if I would be free sometime to meetup. Taken aback, my first response was “what for?” Totally inappropriate. Awkward. But therein reveals an ingrained mentality of defined purposefulness in many things I do, or at least the expectation of that. Somwhat culturally conditioned, many of us are brought up to be calculative. Phrases like “Spend your time wisely”, concepts like “cost-benefit analysis”, even the chinese concept of success which is to grow up to become a “useful” person, all communicate how we ought to plan our lives and respond to the world in a very utilitarian way.
Many people lead lives that are like that. And we see more and more of that as we progress through stages of our lives. The young age of innocence is replaced by conscious and continuous deliberation and worrying about the cares of life. For me that is very evident in college, especially when it all balls down to deadlines, grades, interviews etc. We get so absorbed in the paper chase and fire-fighting night after night, or running from meeting to meeting, failing to recognise that our existence has become more functional than meaningful. I am not discounting the things people do, for they can be pretty noble. But it can be easy to miss the big picture. How do I prevent myself from trudging through life fulfilling responsibility after responsibility, achieving goal after goal, like a hamster on the wheel until I pass away?
I think the key is to look beyond life as being functional, and to embrace its ontological (dealing with essence of being, intrinsic) significance. This means I acknowledge that life presupposes a source, and this Source we know as the God who breathed life into us, and intends it to be full and abundant (John 10:10). This has important implications. This suggests that intrinsically life is worth living and full and abundant, independent of what we are able to do with it, independent of how successful we are. Many singaporeans I know, including sometimes myself, like to say “die! die!” when we fail in something. This betrays the sentiment of pegging success to the essence of life itself, however exaggeratedly. This should not be! I recall a line in the hymn that says “life is worth the living just because he lives”, speaking of Christ’s resurrection. How true! Life is not worth living because there is yet another mountain to scale, it is worth living because God is that author of life and he has secured our eternal future through the resurrection of his Son, sent to die for us.
We must beware of the departure from an ontological perspective of life to a functional one even in faith matters as well. These few weeks God has exposed how functional of a relationship ours has become. When do I seek God? When I need strength for the day, wisdom to lead small group, help for a friend in distress. These are all good. But imagine going to your mother only when you need help. Do I stop to behold His majesty? Do I embrace Him for who He is apart from his blessings? Do I praise His absolute holiness? Do I treat him as a friend? Or do I only come with him with an agenda, formulating the next “what for?” in my mind? May we echo the Psalmist in all pathos, saying “as a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” (Psalm 42:1,2). Not your gifts, not your helps, but you alone, Father.
