The Search for Significance

I see so many people today, women and men, who are chasing a dream.  A dream life, one that fulfills and thrills and fills them.  But that dream isn't reality.  What they are finding instead is that they are filled to their emotional, mental, and intellectual brims with emptiness, empty promises that the newest book or cause or school of thought couldn't deliver.  And then next year, after that book or cause or thought didn't work, there is something new, something that promises to bring what the old way didn't bring. 

I see so many people who are exhausted.

They have nothing to give externally because internally they are depleted.  They've filled their lives with so many things - mind you, I'm not just talking about material things - but so much stuff that they are exhausted trying to keep up with it, trying to take care of everything.

What kind of things am I talking about? 

First of all, know that when I say they, I mean me!!  I see this as a universal problem for us all, at least in this part of the world.  So what kind of things?  Consider this:  We overschedule ourselves because being busy means we are important.  We serve and we give and we donate because giving means we are good.  We buy and we spend and we accumulate because stuff  means that we are successful.

And yet we are unhappy.  Frustrated.  And again, exhausted. 

I think we know we are doing this, and yet we keep struggling on, hoping and praying that the next thing we try will be the thing that makes us better, that makes us at least feel better . . .  that makes us just feel. 

What are we looking for?

We are searching for significance.  For validation.  We want the world to acknowledge that we exist, that we are here.  We realize that we might not cure cancer or create world peace.  Yet still, we long to matter.  To contribute. 

The worst part of this tragedy is that Christian men and women struggle with this same search.  We don't understand why we are here, what we were created for, what we are meant to do.

If you've been to one of my retreats or talks lately, you've heard this theme.  We were created for three things:  to love God, to love each other, and to make disciples.  THAT makes us significant.  When we love our creator, and he loves us back, that's what makes us special.  When we treat each other with loving-kindness, the kind of love that cannot be explained away, that creates peace.  When we share that love with people we don't yet know, we matter. 

I believe that God has specific, special plans for each one of us.  But you can't start there.  You begin at the beginning, right where Jesus said:  Love God.  Love your neighbor.  Go and make disciples. When you are doing those things, the rest of the plan will come.

Are you significant?  Yes.  Are you valuable?  Infinitely. 

Only in God will you find your true worth.  And only your true worth will last.  There's no book, no speaker, no teacher who can give you value.  Only the One who created your value in the first place can show you what it is. 

Stop searching.  Start loving.  Keep going.

That's the key.