Conclusion: Reordering Our Understanding of Life’s Meaning

We return to the question at the beginning of this chapter: Why do we live? Scripture guides us to understand life through the Creator, Christ’s redemption, and God’s promises, rather than reducing its meaning to a career, an undertaking, or a particular achievement.

Our worldview helps us recognise that the world comes from God and that human beings have both dignity and responsibility. Our view of life helps us understand that life is a gift we receive, and that through Christ we are reconciled to God and come to belong to Him. Our values help us assess choices through love for God and others and faithfulness to the truth. Our understanding of wealth guides us to receive resources with gratitude, manage them responsibly, and willingly share them. Our understanding of success helps us pursue good results diligently while examining whether the ways we achieve them are faithful to God and consistent with justice. Freedom and abundance help us understand the life Christ gives, which gradually grows through the Holy Spirit’s renewal.

These six aspects are interrelated and together influence how we understand life and make choices. How we understand reality affects how we arrange our lives; what we value affects how we acquire and use wealth; and how we assess success and failure reveals what we rely on. God’s call guides us to bring these questions before Him, allowing His truth to shed light on our understanding and choices.

The meaning of life, therefore, needs to be understood through the life and grace God gives, and lived out as we respond to Him each day. God gives us dignity, and Christ accomplishes salvation. Those who have received grace learn today to trust, love others, work, give, and take responsibility. We do not have to prove our dignity as God’s creatures through our performance, nor can we use that dignity as a reason to neglect our responsibilities.

Life comes from God. Through Christ’s redemption we turn to Him; in responding to His call, we come to understand life anew; and in walking with Him, we live faithfully and look forward to being with Him forever. Seeking the meaning of life also leads us to know the God who gives life more deeply and to turn to Him.

Understanding life’s meaning does not give us an immediate answer to every question, but it helps us know whom to seek, what to base our judgements on, and where to place our hope. As we continue following God, this understanding also needs to shape our character. When choices come at a cost, waiting seems very long, or our efforts go unnoticed, how do we remain faithful to God? The next chapter takes up this question as it explores calling and character formation.