What difference does my life make? Will it matter that I walked the earth? What legacy will I leave? Will anything in the world be better because I was here? At the end of it all will my life have mattered. These are questions that all of us ponder at times. In moments when we gather ourselves and reflect on days gone by and our years yet to come, we wonder about our contribution to the world, God’s kingdom, our family and just in general…
If you were to go to a mall or park, stop passers-by and ask them what is most important in life, most would answer – ‘to be happy.’ Happiness is one of the most fundamental of human needs. We all want to experience joy, we all love to laugh. We want to surround ourselves with things that increase our happiness – or at least decrease our sorrow. And why not? It feels better to be happy than sad…
As a pastor, I have spent a good deal of time visiting people in the hospital. Sometimes it’s a happy occasion – like the birth of a child. Most of the time it’s a difficult season for someone enduring moments of pain, fear and possibly death. I always find it hard to have words to say in those moments, words that don’t sound like a time-worn cliche. I want to make everything better. I want it all to just go away. I want to promise them that they will be healed – but I can’t. I’m not God. I don’t get to make these decisions.
I am a firm believer that we have a reason for everything we do. We don’t always recognize what our reasons are, but we have them. Often, we are motivated by a deep sense of need that we can’t define or describe, but we know it’s there. All human need can be defined at its heart by five universal needs. These are needs that are common to all of us; that get to the marrow of what drives so much of what we think, feel and do. The better we can understand those issues and the passions that lie beneath them, the better we can understand our own motives.
