Questions must have their answers, and answers must have their questions. No escaping it. In my youth, Life seemed to be an adventure-journey with lots of questions in search of answers. Then In my early adulthood, Life became a wilderness-search for The Answer. Yet now in my late adulthood, Life is the wilderness through which to search for The Question. But, what is The Question?
Life is a journey in search of answers, that is certain. However think of this, if we first don’t know the question, how can we then find the answer?
So, what is The Question? Three basic questions persist throughout all seasons of life, invoking strong emotions from curiosity to consternation. They commonly are:
- “What is Life?”
- “Who am I?”
- “What is my Purpose in this Life?
To answer these, I submit The Question must be, “Is God in any of this?” After all, who is more able to define Life than the One who designed and created it? Who else is more able to define Me, than the One who made me and gives me my very identity? Who is more able to clarify my Purpose in this Life, than the One who gifted and calls me? God most surely is in all these basic questions.
Over the years I let others tell me what Life is, who I am, what my Purpose is. But chasing their answers failed to give me life, and the best reason to live it. So, I tried to answer for myself, as my own best judge and jury. That too failed to hold up in the court of reality! So, if not others, if not me, then who? God.
As you read this, perhaps on your own journey through Life, you are wrestling with one or all of those basic questions in search of an embraceable answer. May I suggest The Question you must ask, “Is God in any of this?” And if so, “How or in what way is He?”
The God I have come to intimately know, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit assuredly is. He is the Creator of all things (including me), and Life itself. He knows me and is present with me no matter where I lay my head. There is no place I can be apart from Him. (Psalm 139). Indeed, He will be with me always, “even to the end of the ages.” (Matthew 28:20). Not only is He with me but in me such that, “I no longer live but Christ lives in me” – a deep mystery. “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20). In Him I am a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17); a workmanship of His Divine hand (Ephesians 2:10), made for a purpose – to glorify Him with the very Life I have been given. (1 Corinthians 10:31). To understand or know the specifics of this, indeed, is the Journey.
Many are the looming questions, and many are times we languish for answers. “Is God in any of this?” Good question. Answer: “Yes dear Christian, He is.”
—RWO/MAST
Comments by Ric Ochsner