What do you want from life?

Three little stories combine in my thoughts this week.

The first is an apparently true story of a teenage girl who was at home one evening, doing her homework.  The girl had enlisted her dad to help her, and as they were focusing on a particular problem the girl received a rather unexpected text message from her mum, which read, “What do you want from life?”

 

Both the girl and her dad were rather taken aback by the question, and they spent some time thinking about how they might answer.  Ideas such as wealth, fulfilment, fame, love etc. came to mind.  After some time, they were interrupted by a further text message from the girl’s mother explaining that the phone’s predictive text had automatically corrected the word “Lidl”!

I’m sure that the whole family had a good laugh about the incident, but the question “What do you want from life?” is a profound one, and perhaps one which we could all do to consider.  It’s easy to drift along in life without making any attempt to focus on what is really important.  For some, the answer they would give would be to do with wealth and possessions.  The second story reminds us that money isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Janine Park was the youngest ever winner of the Euromillions Lottery jackpot, winning £1m at the age of just 17.  I’m sure that many would envy her good fortune.  But Janine herself tells a very different story: “I thought it would make [life] ten times better but it’s made it ten times worse. I wish I had no money most days. I say to myself, ‘My life would be so much easier if I hadn’t won’ … “People look at me and think, ‘I wish I had her lifestyle, I wish I had her money.’ But they don’t realise the extent of my stress. I have material things but apart from that my life is empty. What is my purpose in life?”  There’s that question again, in a slightly different form.

The third part of the ‘jigsaw’ came through preparing for a recent school assembly.  The school’s theme for the week was Respect, and I’d been asked to speak on that subject.  I began by looking at the use of the word respect in the Bible, and one verse in particular seems appropriate to this blog.  It comes from the book of Proverbs (11.16), ‘A kind-hearted woman gains respect, but ruthless men gain only wealth.’  I noted particularly the word ‘only’.  In other words, wealth and possessions are no big deal; as far as the Bible is concerned they’re certainly not something to make as your life’s goal; there are many other things which are far more precious.

Many years ago, I was first captivated by Jesus’ words, ‘I have come that you might have life, and have it to the full’ (John 10.10).  In Jesus is true life, and it’s eternal.  “What do you want from life?”  For me, the answer is an ever-closer relationship with Jesus, and to live my life in partnership with him.  So how would you answer the question?