By 
The shower was running, the music blaring, when I walked down the hall to the bedroom: “How deep is the ocean? (How high is the sky?)”* Exactly, I said to myself in light of the lunar eclipse of the evening before. Does it not make you pause for a moment to wonder at the majesty of creation? O LORD, our Lord, …You have set your glory above the heavens (Psalm 8:1), and below the oceans and in the roses “sprinkled with dew”*. Just “how far is the journey from here to a star?”*
Who are you, God?
Why do you bother with us?
Why take a second look our way? (Psalm 8:4, MSG).
Yet that is exactly what You do. You invite us in for a deeper view. You draw us to the reality of You with the big, big questions, as You did Job (Job 38-41). May our hearts respond as Job: My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you (Job 42:5).
Having caught a glimpse of God—and even if you don’t have a God faith—inevitably you will pursue your spot in the grand scheme of things. According to Ravi Zacharias, RZIM apologist: “When you think of it, really there are four fundamental questions of life. You've asked them, I've asked them, every thinking person asks them. They boil down to this: origin, meaning, morality and destiny.
'How did I come into being?
What brings life meaning?
How do I know right from wrong?
Where am I headed after I die?'”
As I mulled over Zacharias’ questions, I realized just how basic they were. Everyone does ask them and, of course, everyone answers depending on his/her God belief. We begin with questions one and two (origin and meaning)—three and four in a later blog.
1.Origin: How Did I Come Into Being?
“The God who made the world and everything in it…gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men…‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’…‘We are his offspring.’’’ (Acts 17:24-28).
The city of Athens was a junkyard of idols (Acts 17:16, MSG), befitting the myriad of gods the idols represented. Add to that this detail: “The Athenians had a foolish notion that they were self-produced, and were the aboriginals of all mankind…that the first men sprung up in Attica like radishes.”** Laugh not. One wonders if our culture has taken a step back in time—oh, not graven images, but idols of fame, fortune, and self; not radishes per se, but persistent theories of evolution.
To counteract such nonsense Paul identifies the one true God, the “UNKNOWN GOD” (17:23), who made it all, the world and everything in it! He formed the first man, Adam, "from the dust of the ground” admittedly. Make no mistake though, Adam did not spring up evolutionally like a radish. God lovingly fashioned him by hand as a potter molds clay; and then He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being (Genesis 2:7). With that breath of life, all of us became God’s offspring.
Yet, Adam and Eve chose to sin and lose their sonship status, hence the vitality of that zoelife: For it you live according to the sinful nature, you will die (Romans 8:13). The corollary is this: but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God (Romans 8:13-14). Spiritual rebirth restores your sonship. It goes like this: natural birth makes you a child of your parents, still an offspring of God but without the status of sonship; spiritual birth makes you a child of God and a co-heir with Christ (Romans 8:15-17).
Let Paul’s words percolate inside: ‘in him we live and move and have our being’.
The breath of life began with God at the beginning of time: “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). It will crescendo at the end of time: “For you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being” (Revelation 4:11). The energy of our zoelife, and our being from the Greek root eimi, are sacred things.
2.Meaning: What Brings Life Meaning?
From one man he (God) made every nation of men, that they should inherit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him…‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’(Acts 17:26-28).
An interesting article by Derek Thompson in The Atlantic (2.24.19), “Workism is Making Americans Miserable”, illustrates that for many of the college-educated elite, work has become “a kind of religion, promising identity, transcendence, and community.”
Deriving our meaning from work does not seem to be God’s intent.
Instead, the life and breath and everything else of Acts 17:25 take on enormous significance: so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him. Paul’s message to the men of Athens is pretty clear:
God created each and every one of us, wherever we might live on the face of the earth, in whichever era we were born into, to actively seek and find and know and worship Him.
God knew what would bring meaning to life. Consider what a beautiful thing it must have been when Adam and Eve walked in harmony with God and creation. Read Tosca Lee’s Havah to get the gist of pure oneness with God and the created world. Weep at the loss of intimacy with the Almighty.
Men of old tried their best to catch the essence of true meaning for us. In Book One of the Confessions of St. Augustine we read: “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.” The Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647) begins this way: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Peter clarifies the purpose of all people belonging to God: that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9).
Jesus said it best when He claimed His work on earth was about to culminate in eternal life for all those who would indeed seek and find and know and worship God: “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).
Knowing God surely seems the essence of meaning.
(To be continued)
*How Deep is the Ocean? (How high is the sky?) 1932, by Irving Berlin
**Adam Clarke, online commentary
Scripture quotations from the NIV unless otherwise indicated.
Nancy Paul
Nancy Paul is Canadian born and bred but happily settled in Texas. She is married, mother of two, and grandmother of three busy boys. A long time Womenary student, she loves to read, is a lover of God's word and a wannabe writer. Nancy is a regular contributor to encouraging.com, a collection of blog articles regularly published by the women of Green Acres Baptist Church of Tyler. As well, she is the women's Bible study coordinator at GABC. 
