What Matters?

Above Image by Andreas Hoja from Pixabay

When people are asked if they think about the meaning of life, nearly 75% say they do, and that percentage is consistent across the world, including Europe, Africa, and Asia. People, unlike any other living creature, have the capacity to question their existence and wonder why.¹ Along with that unique ability to question our existence is the ability to consider the meaning of life. In other words, if we were created, why are we here, and is there a purpose to our existence?

Everyone has a need that must be met, and that need is to make a difference, to serve a good beyond themselves. People don’t question this; in fact, to have meaning and significance is mandatory for every person on Earth. Without it, the will to live is extinguished.

            I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer – Jim Carrey

One example of having meaning, or a reason to make a difference, is shared by author and surgeon Atul Gawande, who tells the story of a doctor at a nursing home who brought in various dogs, cats, rabbits, and birds that needed to be cared for. “The residents began to wake up and come to life. People who we had believed weren’t able to speak started speaking.”² The nursing home residents asked to take dogs for walks, adopt the animals, and care for them. Death rates dropped, and the need for drugs plunged nearly 40%. All of this simply because the residents suddenly had a purpose in their lives that went beyond their own needs being met.

Albert Camus, a Nobel Prize recipient and a French philosopher, does not look at the end of life as a step or gateway into something greater, but as a door closing. All atheists who seriously consider the meaning of life realize that if life had ‘meaning’, that would imply there is a right and wrong way to pursue that meaning. To avoid the obvious shortcomings, Camus felt it would be better for everyone to pursue their own significance. That may be a political career, teaching in the classroom, or helping others as an EMT. It is your choice to live your life as you see fit.

Steven Jay Gould, a Harvard biologist, author, scientist, and atheist explains, if life has a meaning, then we are not free to create our own meaning to life.³ Allowing others, or even a God to determine what ours is, severely hampers our freedom to do as we please with the one life we have.

Camus and Gould may disagree on the reason humans should pursue our own meaning, but they certainly agreed that humans should create their own meaning in life.

What man really fears is not so much extinction, but extinction with insignificance. – Ernest Becker

But not every atheist sees meaning in life that way. Atheist Richard Dawkins faces life without meaning head-on: “Humans have always wondered about the meaning of life… life has no higher purpose than to perpetuate the survival of DNA… life has no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.”

Is life about doing as we please and determining for ourselves what our purpose is in life? Can we have meaning in life if there is no God? It could be argued that lives without God have meaning for a period of time, but let’s face it, sadly, in the short span of 100 years, everyone who knew you will be dead. So, unless you make it into the history books, no one will know or remember you. If that is not enough, in a few billion years, our sun will expand into a red giant phase and engulf the Earth, leaving nothing behind.

The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. Proverbs 20:5

If you are a secularist, you must not think about the big picture, because if you do, the conclusion that your life does not amount to any more meaning than a grain of sand on the ocean shore is inevitable. Everyone who knew you will be dead someday, and someday everyone who has heard of you will also pass away; consequently, every memory of you, no matter how fleeting, will be extinguished.

How is that circumvented? Materialists must assign meaning to their lives, but that comes with serious drawbacks. We may create meanings that don’t align with each other. For example, I may want to build a shelter for battered and abused women for recovery. Someone else may choose to be the abuser of women, taking advantage of them, using them to satisfy any needs he may have. As a secularist, who is to say one meaning is better than the other? You can’t know, or even claim that one meaning is superior to another, if everyone is free to choose their own meaning. Ethical considerations and moral choices are nothing more than personal preferences based on feelings. Choices labeled as virtuous amount to nothing more than choosing vanilla ice cream over chocolate.

The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. Proverbs 16:4

If we assign meanings to ourselves, they are short-lived and ultimately meaningless. However, if we have meanings inherent to our identity, then ultimately meaningless does not enter into the equation of life.

Timothy Keller points out, “The meanings that secular people have are not discovered but rather created. They are not objectively ‘there.’ They are subjective and wholly dependent on our feelings. You may determine to live for political change or the establishment of a happy family, and these can definitely serve as energizing goals. However, I want to argue that such created meanings are much more fragile and thin than discovered meanings. Specifically, discovered meaning is more rational, communal, and durable than created meaning.”⁴

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10

If your meaning in life follows Scripture, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, then suffering can’t take that from you. In fact, as much as we might not like to admit it, suffering can enhance our meaning. The old saying, there are no atheists in a foxhole often rings true, but for many, suffering and difficult times cause us to reach out to God for the help we need.

One of, if not the most, misused Bible verses that Christians toss about is Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. I find it amusing that no one ever quotes Jeremiah 29 just six verses later.

Jeremiah 29:17-18 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, behold, I am sending on them sword, famine, and pestilence, and I will make them like vile figs that are so rotten they cannot be eaten. I will pursue them with sword, famine, and pestilence, and will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the Earth, to be a curse, a terror, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them.” Suffering is an integral part of the Christian story and is also part of our own story.

Christians are not promised a life of ease and pleasure; in fact, it can make life even more difficult. Tossing out Jeremiah 29:11 to brothers or sisters who are suffering does little to alleviate their sorrow.

Atheists can only view misery as a meaningless affliction to be avoided at all costs. Suffering is often regarded as a hindrance or interruption to the meaning they have assigned to their own life. If you have assigned your own meaning or purpose to your life, I doubt grief or misery were two words you used in defining your meaning to life.

Viktor Frankl, who suffered at the hands of the Nazis during World War II, did what he could to encourage fellow prisoners in their concentration camp. Many lost hope because of their great suffering. “Then I spoke of the many opportunities of giving life a meaning. I told my comrades (who lay motionless, although occasionally a sigh could be heard) that human life, under any circumstances, never ceases to have meaning, and that this infinite meaning of life includes suffering and dying, privation and death. The purpose of my words was to find a full meaning in our life, then and there, in that hut and in that practically hopeless situation.”⁵ Romans 8:16-17

I have heard it said that the two most important days of your life are the day you are born and the day you discover your purpose. – Unknown

We have meaningful moments every day and often we may not see them. Just a few moments with someone may have a life long meningful impact on their lives.

Greg Koukl puts it in perspective when he shares about the few minutes he spent with a young Christian girl he was trying to pick up. She had mentioned a Jesus community near UCLA, and months later, as a baby Christian, he remembered her mentioning it, and he signed up.

Doing so changed the direction of his life forever, he wrote, “Here is the lesson I learned from that encounter. No matter how small my audience (Adrian had an audience of one), I never know when my own short moment of faithfulness will turn out to be the hinge pin, the turning point in someone else’s life, the small event that changes everything for them from that day forward.”⁶

Don’t try to add more years to your life. Better to add more life to your years. – Blaise Pascal

Other religions view suffering differently from Christianity. Hindus view suffering as karma; you are getting what you deserve because of your past life. In Buddhism, the goal is to eliminate all desires from life, which is believed to end suffering. However, if you have the desire to eliminate all desires, that is self-defeating because it is, in itself, a desire. Islam often views suffering as a test of faith, but that is an incomplete picture.

Through His crucifixion, Jesus took the sins of the world upon Himself for all who would accept His free gift. Through His suffering, Jesus achieved victory over death. We, in the process of sanctification, bear our own cross and walk with Christ to become more like him every step of the way. “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” Luke 9:23 Suffering as a Christian is walking with Christ, which is often redemptive, transformative, and eternally meaningful. 1 Corinthians 10:31

What Matters?© 2025 by James Glazier is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International