Once again, I find myself apologizing to faithful readers for my lack of faithfulness in updating this little corner of the blogosphere. Not for the first time, nor probably the last, I’ve allowed the distractions of life & business to deflect me from this bit of avocation.

In the 3 months or so since my last posting, though, things have been pretty eventful here around the faithrants homestead. A good bit of time has been spent exploring the woods and rivers of my native West Virginia, mostly with a fly rod in hand, and most often with boon companions. Intertwined with that has been a season of rediscovering true community and settling in with a few co-conspirators and their families seeking to create a space for ourselves to worship together and do life together in both new and very ancient ways. It is proving to be an incredible time of healing, inspiration and renewal.

Amid all of this, as well as some challenges with health issues in the family and the death of a dear neighbor and one of my closest college friends, God has been revealing some pretty incredible things to me. And the most incredible is this:

I think I’ve found the answer.

The answer to THE big question, the question everyone wants to know the answer to:

What is the meaning of life? Why are we here?

And the answer is really simple. Almost sublime in the way it thumbs its nose at all the ways we’ve tried to over-complicate it.

Here it is.

Are you ready?

We are here to glorify God.

Period.

Wait, WHAT? “What does that even mean?” you might ask.

Just this: We all have a purpose in life. And that purpose is to glorify God. To make him famous. To point everything we do at him, to give him the credit for it all, to claim none for ourselves.

Now before you go thinking that all of this makes God sound like a bit of a power-hungry egomaniac, let me clarify a bit.

It turns out, what glorifies God is for us, his creation, to live completely, freely, in the joy of his love. He gives us gifts, talents, interests and passions and says to us, go out and use it all. Puruse the deepest desires of your heart. Squeeze every ounce of life out of existence. And when pain and hardships come, and they will, he invites us to lean back into him for comfort, for courage, for perseverence.

So it’s a win-win. We get this amazing life full of wonder and surprises and relationships and fulfillment, and God is made famous.

So maybe he gave you a love for teaching or music or art or biology. And he gave you the tools to pursue that passion: the gift of helping or healing or leadership; and the talents to match your gift to your passion in a way that speaks to the world. Then he inspires you to put it all together, and to find joy in what comes out. And we turn around and point it all back to him, the one who created it all, who holds it all together and who is actively working to renew all things.

I’m going to be exploring these thoughts a little more fully in the coming weeks, but for now I just want to drop that idea in your lap and let you wrestle with it awhile. Let it squirm around in your brain. Give it some space to breathe through conversations. Think through its implications.

Share your thoughts here, or over on my Facebook page. What does it mean for YOU to glorify God?