Living for Something More

There seems to be a general sense of a lack of direction in many people’s lives. This results from a prevailing combination of factors that are too many to list here, but all draw back to one reason: apathy. In general, we lack direction as a whole because we don’t really care. We’ve forgotten what it was like to work for something and to work toward something. Our lives are not voiced with purpose, they are ran by our desires.

These problems are not solely limited to people in the “world”. They are increasingly a part of the everyday Christian’s life as well. We have our nice churches, we have lived our lives in the era of grace, sadly, of cheap grace in many cases, and there seems to be very little left to do. What else is there to work toward when your church comfortably seats 1500 and all bills are paid? And if your life is already full of blessings, which are easy to obtain in this time of economic prosperity that Americans are experiencing, it seems a little…unrealistic to live life as if there was really something to live for. After all, life is life and for the average American, it’s pretty good. Why strive for something more?

But what if this reality was not supposed to be our reality? As that sentence sounds a bit like something from the Matrix and altogether too philosophical, let me explain a little further. The world we live in is not supposed to be one we consider ourselves part of. As a Christian, we’re supposed to live in the world, but not be strictly of it. This means many things, among them a separation from the ideas and motivating factors that drive the world’s mantra. Christians are supposed to live lives that are holy, godly, and while we possess material items (i.e., technology and gadgets) they aren’t supposed to change our attitudes or our ways of living.

It’s very easy to fall in the trap that because we live in the period of the dispensation of grace, we can bend the rules somewhat and blur our lines a little. God’s grace and mercy are significant and eternal and all we have to do is ask for forgiveness, right? Well, yes. Yes, grace and mercy are always available. Yes, all you have to do is ask. Yes, we are blessed beyond measure in this aspect. There is nothing better than knowing that God still has His hand stretched toward you even after you’ve fallen and messed up over and over and over. However…

There is a reason to live according to how we should live and not according to how we can live. I’m referring to the fact that Christians are supposed to live for something more. We are to live for something greater and better and bigger than ourselves. We are to be the lights, the eternal flames that sit on a hill bringing illumination to our dark and shadowy world. There is nothing that says we are supposed to be constantly flickering.

Living for something bigger than yourself gives you a reason to act right. It lets you know there’s more to come, causes you to be aware that you aren’t the only thing in the universe. It’s the reason that immature people suddenly start to live normally and responsibly once they have kids. It’s the reason that we expect more from those in leadership because they are leading us into living for something more and the mantle of responsibility is supposed to give them a holy purpose.

Living for something more as a Christian is supposed to be second nature. We live for God every single day. He is something more. But sometimes I think we forget that this is the case. When we forget that we are actually not living our lives for ourselves, we start to stray. We miss church a little easier. We don’t take our commitments as seriously. The lines between what’s right and what’s wrong are blurred and fade as times goes on. Living with the mentality that life is only about YOU is a dangerous place to take up residence. If the church as whole is to grow and to expand, we are to become parents, no longer sold out to our own ambitions and desires, but married to the idea of the fact that we are responsible for spreading the light to those around us who live in darkness.

When you begin to live for something more, suddenly the light needs to be on all the time. Having it flicker is not acceptable. It starts to become a true second nature to live life in a holy state, a state of sacrifice and of self-containment. This is how the church should live. This is how we should be. Perhaps it doesn’t sound like a very fun world, but in the end, it’s a better one.