FINDING YOUR “WHY”

Some people will not walk in the woods without a compass. Others, like me, are content with a map or will merely backtrack so as not to get lost. In any case, we need to be in control and to know why and where we are going.

The late German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, put it like this: “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” If we have a purpose in life and are moving forward, we can better endure the difficulties. This is because our “eyes are on the prize.”

Today, many are talking about finding their own personal “why.” Simon Sinek had said: “Discovering your WHY is like panning for gold in the river of the past. The gold is there, lost in the debris of the river, hidden by the rushing water.”

Sinek is focused on people finding their own personal and individual WHYs. How? By self-examination – what they enjoy and what they are good at. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this. However, we need more. To illustrate this point, let me ask some rhetorical questions of the person who has found his WHY in painting:

·       What happens when the artist sees that someone else’s paintings are better or more highly praised than his own?

·       If we have built our kingdom on the approval of others or our successes, will not we become discouraged if our fellow artists are getting more acclaim that we?

·       Even if we find our WHY, won’t our ego-needs continue to assert themselves and undermine our WHY?

·       Even if we are successful and acclaimed, will this really give us what we need, or is it just a temporary fix?

·       Doesn’t our self-satisfaction then depend upon our success and performance – another form of self-obsession?

Perhaps instead of Sinek’s gold, our WHY might actually be a form of fools-gold? Last night, I was part of a group discussing this very question of finding our personal WHYs. The majority mentioned helping others. However, people are notoriously difficult to help. Sometimes, any attempt to help them will be resisted. Many feel themselves demeaned by receiving help. Often, we offer help because it makes us feel good about ourselves. If we are not aware of this domineering need, we might even be “helping” others in ways that are actually hurting them.

In any event, we may become resentful if they didn’t recognize our efforts to help. We might want to be virtuous, but what happens when our virtue is driven by pragmatic considerations – what makes us feel good about ourselves. Is virtue virtuous if it is self-centered?

We need to explore our WHY. Of what does our motivation to help consist? I had observed that no one asked this question, although some expressed their WHY as seeking to understand themselves. However, the question of God or even a Higher Power was left out of the discussion, as if the group had sensed that there was something illegitimate about bringing God to the table.

However, the question of WHY depends upon a God and who He is. He is the ultimate WHY, the place where the buck stops.

Without a moral law-Giver, there can be no basis for objective moral truth. Justice and injustice, good and bad, and virtue and evil can be little more than evolving social conventions. While most of us agree that a sense of right and wrong is wired into us, if this wiring is merely the product of mindless, purposeless evolution, then these intuitions are no more than uncaring electro-chemical reactions. Therefore, if the concept of virtue is just something we invented, then the practice of virtue or other-centeredness can be no more than self-serving.

From this understanding, it might feel good to do “good,” but such a practice of virtue will not continue once it becomes costly. Self-interest will inevitably overrule the practice of an arbitrary, socially-determined, and evolving concept of virtue. If it is not entirely overruled by our physical and psychological needs, then the practice will become so twisted that it will inevitably hurt those it attempts to serve. Consequently, the late poet, T.S. Elliot, reflected on the dangers of such idealism:

·       Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves. 

This brings us to another reason that God must be brought into the discussion. So many people confess that they don’t understand themselves, and for good reason. But, if there is anything that they should understand intimately, it is they. Why then the confusion? Simply this – it is just too painful and humbling to face ourselves. We therefore run from this horror of self and suppress our guilt and shame. We cover it over with self-esteem exercises and self-affirmations – whatever makes us feel good, even if just temporary. Consequently, after we have deceived ourselves for so long, we don’t even know who we are.

It was only through God’s guarantees of His love, forgiveness, and acceptance of me that I could begin to face and accept myself. It was so painful that it took years, but now I feel that I’m free from self-deceptions (John 8:31-32). However, without this confidence and freedom, I too was becoming a social-justice warrior and would have hurt many in the process, if only it would raise my self-esteem.

Inevitably, finding the WHY is a matter of finding what we have rejected – God.

THE GLADIATOR

An atheist just cited his favorite Christopher Hitchens, an atheist also, saying:

·       "Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence."

For some, disputation can be a fun contest, as long as you can hold your own. I admit that I also like disputation. However, where the joy of disputation is a matter of proving yourself, you will find that there is always someone better, who can pin your tongue against the wall.

However, for the Christian, disputation can become a mission field. It is also a calling to serve the Lord and to glorify His Gospel. This means, win or lose, we still have the fulfillment of knowing that we are honoring our Savior.

What does the atheist have? The lonely and temporary victory of the gladiator who asks, “For what?”

PSYCHOLOGIST SUSAN BLACKMORE AND THE POINTLESS LIFE

Atheist Susan Blackmore was asked to explain her purpose in life. Here’s her answer:

·       If I get a what’s-it-all-for sort of feeling, then I say to myself, What’s the point of it all? There isn’t any point. And somehow, for me – I know it’s not true for other people – that is really comforting. It slows me down. It reminds me that I didn’t ask to be born here, I’ll be gone, and I won’t know what’ll happen, I’ll just be gone, so get on with it. I find that comforting, to say to myself that there is no point, I live in a pointless universe. Here I am, for better or worse, get on with it.

Blackmore finds it “comforting” that life is meaningless and that the universe is pointless. Later, she explains:

·       The pointlessness of life is not a thing to be overcome. It’s something to be celebrated now, because that’s all there is.

How can it possibly be comforting to find that life has no intrinsic meaning or purpose? How can such a thing be “celebrated?” She asks herself:

·       What’s the point of growing these beans again, because they’ll just die, and then next year I’ll do the same thing again. But isn’t that a great pleasure in life, that that’s how it is? The beans come and go, and you eat them and they die, and you do the work, and you see it come and go. Today is the due date for my first grandchild, and I think similarly about that. The cycles of birth and death.

For Blackmore, her grandchild is like her beans and their cycle of life and death. She claims that she takes pleasure in life’s cycles – even death, mourning, and aging. Is Blackmore honest about this, or is this just another form of bias-confirmation – the need to prove ourselves and our past choices right even when they are patently wrong?

Blackmore is a psychologist. Can she truly empathize with the suffering of others, when her strategy is to “get on with it?” And is she in touch with her own feelings of pain and loss?

Life is full of pain and disappointment. When people tell me to simply “get on with it,” they tell me that they are unwilling to accept my suffering – that there is something wrong with me if I cannot just “get on with it.” Fortunately, this isn’t the strategy of our Savior. Instead, Scripture informs us:

·       For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:15-16)

Postmodernism, Logic, Love, and Truth

As soon as you mention something about “truth,” feathers begin to fly. You’ll hear responses like:

1. The only truth is change itself.
2. Everyone’s got their own way. It’s not a matter of one-size-fits-all!
3. The idea of truth is just too rigid.
4. The only truth is what is true for you alone!

We live in a postmodern age. Consequently, these statements seem to be so well-established that they are beyond questioning. They are as acceptable as the statement, “I exist” or “I like chocolate.”

However, postmodern thinking has become so much a part of our culture that it is as familiar and unnoticeable as the ocean is for a lobster. We have become so comfortable with this worldview, we fail to see that these assertions are illogical.

For instance, if the only truth is change itself (#1), then this statement is also subject to change and therefore contradicts itself. Therefore, this assertion cannot be true, at least not for long!

Statement #2 also contradicts itself. If “everyone’s got their own way” and there is no truth that is common to all of us, then this statement also is illogical, because it too is a statement of truth that pertains to all. Meanwhile, it rejects the notion that there is any truth that does pertains to all, while asserting the “truth” that it is all simply relative.

Statement #3 is equally illogical. If “the idea of truth is just too rigid,” then this statement is also too rigid, since it too is a statement of truth.

Statement #4, while claiming that we cannot assert what is true for other people (only what is true for us), implies that this principle is true for everyone, thereby contradicting itself.

The problems of incoherence do not stop in the realm of ideas. They also infiltrate our lives like stealth ninjas. For instance, just about everything that we say is a truth statement. Just think of the following instances:

1. That was a great movie.
2. My son goes to a wonderful school.
3. Bill is really a nice guy.

All of these statements have embedded value judgments. They suggest that, according to a universal standard, there is something objectively of value about the movie, school and Bill. However, if you were to press the postmodern about these implicit objective standards, she would retreat and redefine what she had stated:

• I only meant that I really enjoyed this movie. I’m not implying that there is anything superior about this movie.

However, this is the very thing that her statement implied. In fact, we cannot but speak in terms of objective truth statements. If we instead reduce all of our statements to merely personal feelings and tastes, we also reduce life and make it unlivable.

One guy tried to do this in regards to our conversations. When I would make truth statements, he would correct me:

• You can only speak for yourself and your own feelings. You can’t speak of truth in general, because, when you do this, you are also speaking for me, and I won’t allow you to do this!

Do you see the incoherence here? While forbidding my truth statements, he invoked many of his own, even requiring us to submit to the same rules. He eventually terminated our conversation.

However, the problems don’t stop here. One postmodern young lady informed me that she had recently found the meaning of her life. She would now devote herself to loving others.

I applauded her commitment to this noble cause. However, she then reassured me that her decision had nothing to do with truth or the inherent virtue of love. Instead, it was all about what personally worked for her! Consequently, she refused to say that what she had found had any relevance for anyone else, since everyone had to find what was right for themselves.

I therefore asked her:

• Since you do not believe in any objective moral law or the inherent goodness of love, do you tell these people that your intention is not really to love them but love yourself?  After all, you stated that you committed yourself to this cause because it works for you and not because of any higher calling. Therefore, isn’t you commitment inherently selfish? And, in order to be transparent, wouldn’t you have to tell the “objects of your love” that you are merely acting out of selfish motives?

How can love be love if it is done primarily out of selfish concerns? Can I pledge myself to my wife for only as long as the marriage works for me? In a world where there is no truth, there is also no real virtue, integrity, honor, justice or anything else that we cherish. Instead, everything is reduced to whether or not it works for us.

When I contrasted her stance with my Christian orientation, she replied, “That’s just too rigid for me.”

In a sense, she is right. Truth is rigid. It makes demands on us and tells us when we go astray, but we need truth nevertheless. I need to know that, when I’ve morally failed and feel the weight of guilt, that my Lord forgives and cleanses me from all of my filth (1 John 1:9). Without this confidence, I would remain consumed by my feelings of guilt and shame.

When I share this with others, they usually respond, “Well, that’s just your faith!” I retort that it’s not a matter of blind faith but substantiated faith. I need evidential assurances that God forgives me. I cannot believe simply because it makes me feel good. For my faith to give me the joy and confidence that I need, I have to be assured of its truth.

How will this postmodern young woman be able to maintain her love commitment once it stops feeling good to her and no longer works for her? I don’t think that she will be able to! We need to not only feel that something is “right”; we also need to be convinced that it is truly right. Only this kind of conviction will carry us through! Otherwise, we retreat into the unstable and juvenile life where feelings alone reign.