What is the purpose of life? I'm familiar with the way the Westminster Shorter Catechism begins: "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." While I would never dispute that declaration, I feel it halts short of depicting the fullest design of human existence. This thought struck me while praying to conclude worship this morning at Shekinah Glory Baptist Church. I prayed for each of us to serve moment by moment as reflections of grace. This, to me, adds the horizontal dimension to the vertical expressed in "glorifying God and enjoying Him." Perhaps the weightiest way I glorify God is reflecting His grace to others--grace received and extended. Is not this the clearest imitation of Christ? Could anything more significantly honor God than by acting like Him in relation to all others? The more clearly we reflect grace, the more we resemble our God of grace and mercy. As Saint Francis prayed:
"Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life."
I would add, "Father, enable me to genuinely reflect Your grace."
1 comment:
Happy Birthday, Dane. I found your blog yesterday and just left a comment on a much earlier post (I met Walt Garrison). I can identify with your ruminations about getting more and more mature but I refuse to countenance "getting older"! That seems to be a theme with you?
Good post today. Interesting — I'm reading the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and he posits a similar thought. At one point in his life, he determined to set out a creed that contained the essentials of religion without being specific to any sect. One. This is what he came up with — or, more accurately, what he could remember when he wrote his autobiography:
"That there is one God, who made all things. That he governs the world by his providence. That he ought to be worshiped by adoration, prayer, and thanksgiving. But that the most acceptable service of God is doing good to man. That the soul is immortal. And that God will certainly reward virtue and punish vice either here or hereafter."
At any rate, I hope today is filled with both reflections of grace and experiences of grace in innumerable ways. I also hope that you won't even notice your aches.
Are you and Jo still coming to Kenya this year?
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