Myself: January 29, 2010 will be your one year anniversary since posting your first blog article, “Welcome To My World!” in the Beginnings category of your blog - livelovethinkexist.com. What makes you feel that your life is special enough to essentially make an entire blog about it?
Mark: Nothing really…that isn’t just as important and special about every other life in the entire world. We are all uniquely and beautifully created by God and are either searching consciously or subconsciously for our own meaning and purpose in this world, which essentially is another way to describe the fact that we are all on the same journey – to return to God – to the One that gave us life in the first place.
Myself: Why do you say “consciously or subconsciously” – do you think other people are unaware that they are on this journey and search for meaning and purpose?
Mark: Yes, actually. From firsthand experience I have to say that it takes a lot of energy to stay focused on meaning and purpose throughout your life - and to ponder the meaning of it all while underway so to speak - as a boat being tossed around by the waves of life. If there is something special about me that’s different from other people, it is that I have spent a great deal of time pondering the journey, and have taken pretty detailed notes along the way. It is the culmination of all of my writings and experiences that I’m bringing to this blog for folks to read and look at, and I’ve barely scratched the surface at this point. First I have to lay down the foundation that everything else is built on in order for it to make sense – and that will take some time.
Myself: What makes meaning and purpose so difficult to focus on?
Mark: The first reason is because it runs counter to everything that the world is focused on, and requires you to always go against the grain of the world’s view and opinion. In fact, little if anything that the world holds up as success, fame, fortune and achievement really counts in one’s ultimate purpose and meaning – that’s what takes relentless energy and focus. The second reason is that it is very difficult to understand your life while you’re actually living it; because you’re never guaranteed to understand the meaning of your life during the course of your own lifetime. So in some ways it’s a case of a dog chasing its tail…some may consider it pointless to pursue.
Myself: So is it pointless to pursue the meaning of your life?
Mark: Just the opposite is true. God knew us before we were created…before we existed…that’s why the word “exist” in the blog’s name is so important. In Jeremiah 1:5, God says to Jeremiah:
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
(Quote courtesy of BibleGateway.com)
To “exist” doesn’t mean to sit on the couch eating junk food all day and watching TV. “To exist” means “to be” – as opposed to the vast void of “nothingness” in both space and time. In Exodus 3:13-15, God describes himself to Moses in a way that dispels any doubt as to His name and very “existence”:
13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”
14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ “
15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.
(Quote courtesy of BibleGateway.com)
Philosophers have long pondered the meaning of existence, as did William Shakespeare – writing in Hamlet 3/1:
“To be, or not to be: that is the question.”
(Quote courtesy of artofeurope.com)
A common phrase today is to, “get real.” The point of it all is that we are real and that we do exist – for but a very short period of time in a physical sense - so what do we do now? What’s the point of it all? That’s the question that I’ve pondered my entire life. The reason that it really matters in the end, besides our own personal journey and final destination, is because the world around us is similar to a smooth calm pond that has had a pebble dropped into the middle of it. We are that pebble dropped into the “pond of life” at the moment of our conception – the moment we were created and given life – the beginning of our existence. From that very first moment of our existence - when we were dropped into the “pond of life” – we have caused a ripple, that endless circle of waves, that continues outwards forever in all directions; intersecting with and mixing with everyone else’s ripples in the world. Because we are unique and because we do actually exist in this world, the world is and has been changed forever because of us having been a part of it. That is why the search for meaning is so important…what will the result of our brief existence be in this world? A complete understanding of what our life’s meaning in this world actually is, may never be given to us during our lifetime; because the meaning of one’s life is really a multifaceted concept that is difficult to grasp and answers are difficult to come by during the course of living one’s life.
The bottom line is that the only perspective of our personal meaning and purpose in this world that actually counts is God’s – nothing else matters. God knows us and knows why we were created, and what His purpose for us is in this world. No other opinion matters - not our opinion of our meaning and purpose, not our family and friends’ opinion, not the culture’s opinion and not the historian’s opinion. That’s the really difficult part. You have to tune out everything around you and listen and think about life and your own personal role while in the midst of it all. You have to think about the events of your life – past, present and future – and attempt to “connect the dots” from God’s perspective, to see how His purpose and Will has been served through your life. Then you have to “listen” to God speak to you through the voice of the Holy Spirit in your heart, in order to obtain guidance as to current and future events and decisions in your life. God speaks to us in many ways and through many events, and by looking back through your life in retrospect you can see vividly where you followed God in your life and where you instead followed yourself and others. When we were formed and created by God, he gave us a purpose and deposited the knowledge and understanding of that purpose in our very soul – but modern man is too busy and too loud to listen to it and gain the perspective of our very Creator that not only created us but also gave us this sense of His purpose. Just because God created us with a purpose in mind doesn’t alter the fact that He also gave us free will, but it does instill a sense of responsibility on our part to seek to understand what His purpose for our lives actually is – while we are still alive to do something about it. Otherwise when we are held to account by God as to how we lived our lives while on this Earth, we have no excuse before God as to what His purpose and meaning for our lives actually was – because He planted it in our soul and all we had to do is be quiet, think and listen to Him through the voice of the Holy Spirit. On top of that, God sent to us His son Jesus as a tangible and visible reminder in the flesh to serve as the “gate” through which we return to the Father. It is through Jesus – the “Water of Life,” the “Bread of Life,” the “Light of the World” and the “Son of Man” that we are reunited with God the Father – cleansed from our sins and forgiven all our trespasses. In addition to our own reconciliation and return to God the Father through His Son Jesus – we have purpose and meaning in this life, in this world while we are alive – to be able to do God’s Will through our lives; which is the meaning and purpose that we seek to understand about why we were created and why we exist.
Myself: Can you describe for us what the meaning of life really is then?
Mark: The meaning of one’s life is actually woven throughout three separate and unique elements that are all distinct and unequal, yet exist together in the same time and place: the Physical World that we interact with on a daily basis, the Spiritual World that completely surrounds us but is a world that we can’t interact with on a physical level, and finally the Eternal – which is God who created us - that exists everywhere in all dimensions of time and space.
The meaning of one’s life in the Physical World is a very fluid concept, as it is largely defined “moment by moment” in terms of our situational interaction with the physical world – people, animals and the rest of our world that we can label generally as Nature. That means that our meaning and purpose on the physical level can change from minute to minute depending on where we are, who we are with and how our impact affects the world around us. A one word summation of our meaning in this Physical World is “Love” – in terms of how our interactions have mirrored “God’s Love” as His representatives or Ambassadors here on Earth. Because our lives are essentially an endless series of interactions with the world around us, so our meaning and purpose can take on different forms and emphasis as each situation arises and develops. The question we should ask ourselves in each situation we find ourselves in is not so much, “What would Jesus do?” but “What would the Father, Son and Holy Spirit want me to do in this situation?” “What am I called to do – here and now – in this very moment of time?” “What is God’s Will for me in this situation?” “What is God’s Will for the people surrounding me in this situation?” That in essence is the fluid nature of the meaning and purpose of our lives in the Physical World – what are WE called to do? For example, how you affected a total stranger during a five minute chat on the bus may never be known by you – but the impact of your interaction on his or her life may have been very profound to them…for better or for worse.
The meaning of one’s life in the Spiritual World is more focused on listening and being aware of the realities of the spiritual dimensions that surround our lives every day. The Spiritual World contains everything that is not in and of this Physical World – both good and evil. If we could put on spiritual glasses to see this other world - as if wearing night vision goggles – we would immediately see a world where an epic battle surrounds each one of us every day for control of our very own soul. Although we can’t impact the Spiritual World in a physical way - it can and does impact ours. I won’t attempt to define this Spiritual World beyond saying that it is full of angels, demons and other spiritual beings that understand the importance of our ultimate destination – the Eternal – which is God. In the middle of this epic spiritual battle for our souls is our physical being, with the free will given to us by God to choose to do good or evil. Our meaning within this Spiritual World is to “listen” to the spiritual environment that exists all around us – not with “physical ears” but with “spiritual ears” - in an attempt to understand the good from the evil and make our stand on the side of the good. God did give us a method of communicating with both the Spiritual World and with the Eternal World – which is God, and that is Prayer – our one gift that allows us to communicate beyond the Physical World to ask for assistance from God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit for direct aid and support from His angels, for understanding and for everything that is good – that is a gift from God to us. Prayer is also answered – in both physical and spiritual ways - in accordance with God’s Will. God only does what is in His nature to do, so prayer requests that run counter to His Will won’t be answered. The closer you understand the nature of God, the purer your prayers will be in God’s ears – and the more aligned your requests will be to His purposes and likely they will be answered in a way that you will understand.
The third component of meaning in one’s life is your personal relationship with the Eternal – which is God. Your relationship with God is essentially a love relationship between the Creator and the created. Because of the sinful nature of man, God the Father has offered us His Son – Jesus Christ – as our “entry way” or “gateway” back to the Father, because through Jesus Christ our sinful nature is washed clean and we are new creations in Christ. The Holy Spirit is our “Helper” in the Physical World and serves as a bridge to us through the Spiritual World by which He assists us and strengthens us every day. All three, God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit are all equal parts of the Eternal – which is God; and although they are omnipresent – in all places at all times – it is the Holy Spirit that specifically was sent to us after Jesus returned to the Father, to be our “Helper” in this Physical World. Our meaning in the Eternal World – which is God - is then to love and serve Him – in essence to do His Will – with all our being and to accept the Gift and Offer of reconciliation with God the Father through His Son Jesus Christ, to ensure our return to God in Heaven after our short life in the Physical World is over.
In summary, the meaning and purpose of our lives equates to doing God’s Will moment by moment in the Physical World, praying for spiritual assistance from God - the Father, Son and Holy Spirit - for direct aid and support from His angels in accordance with His Will in the Spiritual World, and loving God – the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – and doing His Will with every fiber of our being; and accepting His Gift and Offer of reconciliation through His Son Jesus Christ to ensure our eternal destination with and in Him in Heaven. Amen.
Myself: Thanks Mark for taking the time to participate in this first interview, I’d like to do this again sometime.
Mark: You’re welcome, it was my pleasure. I’d be happy to do that – thanks for giving me the opportunity…Cheers.
