When people say that life, or their life, has a meaning we conclude that they have adopted a
certain view of life which brings order into their experience. It proposes values for their rational
aspiration that excite their commitment. It enables them to act freely and interestedly and to
regain freedom and enthusiasm when adverse experience plunges them into some compulsive
reaction.
For Christians meaning is given to life in the form of a pattern of believing, hoping, loving, and
belonging that derives from the life and teaching of Jesus. The believer does not have to
construct this meaning. It is there, among many other forms of believing that await notice and
interest. The Christian chooses this one because the Jesus who first taught it has a unique
magnetism and because it constitutes a reasonable interpretation of life.
Deep within this meaning is the conviction that life is to be interpreted as sign and lived as
though human beings are continually being addressed or called in one way or another. This way
of thinking derives from the opening pages of the Bible. In Genesis 1:1-2:3 the whole
evolutionary process is presented under the image of a God who “says” each element in it to
bring it into being. And what God says is good.
What God “says” in one form or another is love. The idea that life is to be drawn from every
word that proceeds from the mouth of God flings open a window in the mind onto an almost
magical world in which everything is ultimately advantage, all is plus, even the dying that has to
be done is part of a positive mercy of continual increase and fulfilment in the warmth of some
eternal sun. To those who have the grace of this vision more will always be given.
From these convictions comes the characteristically Christian view that every experience is a
kind of annunciation, an announcement that God wishes us to receive something, to do
something, or endure something, and that, if we are willing to say “yes”, our receiving, doing,
enduring will be the occasion of divine self-revelation in time again.
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