This is the second series in the annual “Pursuit of Happiness” theme. The “meaning of life” is a deep and seemingly heavy theme, yet a very important one. Join us as Rev. Kim leads us in reflection and tackling this very meaty topic. We engage in dialogue between what the Bible says, and what thinkers of the past have thought.
The recordings are taken from the annual St. Timothy retreat held on June 22-24, 2012.
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Session Text
Introduction
Welcome to this seminar. A few of you, even some unexpected people, approached me and said, “I came up to the retreat for the topic, the meaning of life. That is something that I really like to think about and reflect on.” Tonight I’m not here to inspire you or make you excited. I think inspiration has to come from within. After the lecture, you probably will understand what I mean by that. So I’m not going to be the one who makes you excited, you are the one who makes yourself excited and your life exciting. So, hopefully, every one of you who’s here really wants to tackle with the question of ‘What is the meaning of life?’ Not the kind of meaning of life that other people told me or other religious leaders told me, but what is really meaningful in my life? What is that meaning that I live with? And I hope that throughout three lectures we may be able to reflect on it really seriously and honestly. Not just smoothly going over, but really tackle on it – “What is my meaning of life?” I hope, that we can get to that not only through the lectures but also through group discussion. I hope that you can share some of your stories too in the group discussions.
Asking the Right Questions
Meaning of life is a very difficult topic. My friend, who is also a pastor, asked me, “So these days, what are you doing?” And I said, “I’m preparing a series on the meaning of life.” And he just looked at me and said, “Good luck. If you find it, let me know.” Yes, it is kind of a difficult topic to really answer with one answer.
What is the meaning of life? “One. This is the meaning…” No, there’s no such thing as that kind of answer. We like to reflect on what really it entails. I mean, we have a few questions about the meaning of life. Is life supposed to have a meaning? Is it the right question? Or is it something like, is ‘orchestra’ written in past tense or present tense? ‘Orchestrate’ is not written either in past tense or present tense, it’s not the right question. So, does life have meaning? Is that the right question? Some people question that. Is life supposed to have meaning? Or are we supposed to just live? What does meaning do to your life? What difference does knowing the meaning of your life does to your life? Or, what happens to your life if you don’t have the meaning of life? Is meaning built? Is meaning built-in in your life? Or is it something outside of your life? So these are some questions. Charles Schultz, creator of Snoopy, he says this, “My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning. And yet, I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. What am I doing right?”
Most of us don’t think about the meaning of life all the time. Usually, when we ask that question, we go through some life crisis. So, to most of us during a crisis, the meaning of life is a life or death question. A very serious question, but in normal times we don’t ask that question.
Ask the Question
Do we have to ask ourselves the meaning of life? My first lecture is to tell you that we have to. It is the most important question we can ask in our lives. Albert Camus, who is a Nobel Prize winner for literature, said this, “I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living. What is called the reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying. I, therefore, conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.” I agree with him. The question of the meaning of life is the most urgent question. I personally think that having and knowing the meaning of life is not an option for life. It is a necessity. You may be happy, but if your happiness is not connected with a sense of meaning in your life, that happiness is on a crumbling foundation. We human beings by nature question and think, that’s part of what human beings are. We have no choice but to question and think. So, we question what we live for, we question what is the purpose of my life? And until we have a relatively clear understanding of why we live, we cannot be naively happy. But if we know why we live, we can almost bear any how. That’s what Nietzsche said. “If you know why you live, you can almost bear any how.”
The standard of living has gotten much better over the last 30 to 40 years. 30 to 40 years ago, a lot of houses did not even have running water, but now every home has running water. Our standard of living got much better, but did our happiness get much better? The study doesn’t show that. A study says that our happiness level is a little bit down, more down then 30 or 40 years ago. I see a lot of people who see no point in continuing their life. They see no point in continuing their life, not because they don’t have money or food to eat, but because they don’t see any meaning in their life. When I go to Evangel Hall, Teasdale, Yonge Street Mission… you know, poverty is a result of it, but first, they lost why they live. They lost the meaning and after that, they became really, really depressed, and that’s why they are depending on other people for food. So if you think that, “Oh, they’re just poor, let’s give them the food.” That’s not enough. First, the meaning wasn’t there. A lot of people felt tremendous depression and then after that, they went through that problem.
Emptiness
Feeling total absence of meaningfulness of life can paralyze you. If you don’t see any point, then that can paralyze you. It can happen to anybody. It happened to Tolstoy when he turned 50, so those who are turning 50, be careful. Be careful when you turn 50, it might suddenly attack you. Tolstoy said, “I did not know how to live or what to do, and I lost myself and was dejected. I had no foundation to stand on.” In his book, Confession, he said this: “It happened also to very spiritual persons like people that you know very well. Prophet Elijah, he was the prophet of Israel, but after he fought against the Baal, he went down under the tree. He said, Lord, I can’t continue this. Just kill me. I cannot go on.” He didn’t see any point of going on.
I think people are scared of feeling emptiness and meaninglessness. They’re scared of it. To avoid the feeling of emptiness and meaninglessness, some people try to make themselves busy so that they don’t have to ask these questions. Or by making themselves busy, they may be fooling themselves thinking that, “Oh, I’m full of life.” But full of activities and full of life are two different things. Just because you are full of activities that don’t mean that you are full of life. So we continuously create activities so then we may fool ourselves that, “I am full of life!” But those two are two different things. We do so many things, but it is possible that we don’t know how these things are connected with each other. I mean, we do a lot of things, but we don’t even think about how these things are connected with each other. We have so many experiences, but we don’t know how these experiences are connected together. But I believe that all these things happen in your life. All the experiences that you have in your life are all not just random events. They are not disconnected experiences. I mean, you had all kinds of experiences, but they are not isolated disconnected events. They are somehow all connected together. They are very much connected and shape and make uniquely who you are.
A different Journey
I am unique and you are unique. My DNA tells me that, but not only my DNA but my life experiences tell me that. The life experiences that you have are very, very unique to you alone. Nobody has the same experiences. You are the only one who experienced all those things and those experience made uniquely who you are. My life is being shaped uniquely. I don’t know exactly how these things that happened in my life are playing out, you know, the certain shape called my life. But definitely, they are not just random events. They shaped my life. We don’t always see that all the times. For example, when you see a tapestry when you see the front is a beautiful picture, but when you turn it around, what do you see? A whole bunch of just threads and going around. You don’t know what it looks like, but when you turn it around, when you change the view, you see the beautiful picture.
Our life sometimes is like that. It looks like all these connected events and experiences that I go through, but when you look at it the other way, at the end when you see it, “Oh! There’s a shape! There’s a beautiful shape in my life.” Sometimes we discover that. Philosopher Kierkegaard said, “Although life has to be lived forward, its full meaning is to be understood only retrospectively.” While you’re going through it, you don’t understand fully what it means, but when you look back… “Ah! These things are connected and made me who I am!” So only retrospectively can we understand? The life you experience it, you experience it now, but only later will you understand what it looks like. We are not just dropped off from heaven or from different time zones. We have become who we are by all the things that happen in our life.
So as you look back, you see a path which your life has taken. You will be able to see that path. As we look back, there is a story that has been formed. So sometimes people call life a journey. The journey has a destination, the journey has a direction, and the journey has a goal. In the same way in life, there is a destination, direction, and our efforts to get our goal. As you find your story, you can find your meaning in life. You have a unique story and you have a unique meaning that is in your life, and we need to find that. If I describe my life metaphorically, I’ll use the image of a conveyor belt. My life was not on a conveyor belt. What I mean is, we didn’t just do activities on a prefixed pattern of life. We were shaping a certain pattern of life. I would snap passively on the conveyor belt, but I was shaping a certain pattern of my life. We are not just mapping readers, we were and we are map makers. We’re not just reading the map of life, we are continuously making a new map in our life. Yesterday, today and tomorrow are not disconnected. What happened yesterday influenced today to make who you are. What I decide today influences what I will be tomorrow. So these are not just random disconnected events. Yesterday, today and tomorrow, they’re all connected together. It is one long stream of a river.
That’s a better image. One long stream of the river. Your river has a particular shape, and each river has a different and particular shape. Waters in your river follow the pattern of the river, but also what I discovered was that waters in your river did not just follow the pattern, but created a new pattern over the years. Over a long period of time, it created the new shape of the river. Do you understand what I’m saying? The water did not just passively follow the pattern, but it created a new pattern, new shape, in the river. We have to understand what our patterns look like because our understanding of what is going on in our life has a crucial role in shaping our life. My existence did not happen accidentally. Who you are did not happen accidentally. Your success, your failure, your upbringing, your education, your mistakes, your family, your friends, your decisions, your hurt, your pain, all these things work together to shape who you are now. Having been is the surest kind of being.
Context
Having been is the surest kind of being. So, we cannot ask generally about the meaning of life. “What is the meaning of life” is a meaningless question. You cannot ask generally about the meaning of life. The meaning of life has to be specifically connected to who you are. Asking generally about the meaning of life is like asking the best chess player in the world, “What is the best chess move?” Without context, you don’t know what it is.
The meaning of life has to be answered in my very specific and particular context. Do you understand, are you following me? About the stories, about life, and all that? Okay, now let’s see. Let’s see what the Bible says. What does the Bible say about life? How does the Bible describe life? The Bible says life as a story also. By telling us the story of Abraham, the Bible shows us the narrative nature of life. Abraham’s life was not just a bunch of disconnected and disjointed activities, and we wrote down a few things, Pastor Sohn worked hard to find some discretion about Abraham’s life, Jacob’s life and Joseph’s life. So you can read it later. But when you look at Abraham’s life, Abraham’s life was not just disjointed activities. He didn’t happen to come to Canaan, he didn’t happen to have a son, Isaac, he didn’t happen to live the way he did. As we look at Abraham’s life, there is a theme. It wasn’t just life, generally life. There was a theme. What was the theme, you think? What was the theme of Abraham’s life?
Faith and obedience. That was the theme of Abraham’s life. His life stories are weaved together to create the story of faith and obedience. His story reaches a climax when he was asked to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. Even at that climax, his faith and obedience play out. So his life was a life of faith and obedience.
How about Jacob’s life? Jacob’s life was very, very different from Abraham’s life. Jacob’s story was a story of what? Struggle. Jacob’s story was a story of struggle. Even when he was born, he grabbed the heel of his twin brother Esau so that he could beat him all his life. All his life he was competitive. He had to struggle. Nothing came easily to him. He had to earn it, fight it, struggle it. Nothing came to him on a silver platter. His life was wrestling all the time. His life was a struggle. Even getting his wife was so difficult. You know how he got his wife? He had to work for seven years. I don’t think any man here worked that hard. Seven years of labour! Finally, he got his wife. And the next morning he got up, “Huh? It’s not my wife! It’s not the woman I wanted to get married! Somebody else!” So Laban kind of tricked him, “You have to work another seven years to get the wife that you want.” So he had to work again for seven years to get the real wife that he loves. Wow. Any man, if you have that kind of devotion, you can get a wife. I mean Jacob, everything was a struggle. Everything was a struggle. Even getting his position was a struggle. He had to fight for it. He had to prevail over others. The climax comes to when before he went back to Canaan, right before Jabbok River, he was really scared because he cheated his brother. So now he had to face his brother. He might kill him. So he was really scared. But that night, what happened? He wrestled with an unknown man. Typical of Jacob, wrestling. All night he struggled with this unknown man, and at the end, he was changed. He was given a new name, Israel. Israel, it has two meanings; it can be he prevailed over this unknown man, or it is God reigns. It has both meanings. I think the latter name is his real name. I mean all his life he struggled, but in the end, he submitted to God and let God reign in his life. That was Jacob’s life, very different from Abraham’s life. The river of Abraham looks very different from the river of Jacob.
How about Joseph? His life was all about what? Dream. Even when he was young, he had a dream and because of his dream, he got into trouble with his brothers and his father and ultimately because of his dream, he got kicked out from Israel and he was sold into Egypt. In Egypt, he was in the prison and then because of his dream he was saved, and because of his dream he went to the top position of Egypt, and because of his dream, he could save all his family. His life was about the dream. So you see, every single person has a different theme, a different life, very unique to their own situations. What the Genesis writer is trying to say is, life is not just a total sum of disjointed activities. Bible tells us that, so don’t live like that. Your life is not just the total sum of your activities, disjointed activities. Events make a story and the story has a theme. And each person has a unique theme to live, and that story continues until we die. Your story is not over. It will continue until you die.
A Story to be Made
But many times when I see people they live as though they are on a conveyor belt. They don’t want to make any changes. They are scared of changes. But the changes are not always all bad. Without changes, our life story cannot continue. Changes are the ones who shape your story of life. When there are changes, these changes make a new pattern in your life, so changes are not necessarily all bad. Changes actually let your story continue to be written.
I’ll show you Moses’ example. Moses was the greatest leader of Israel, but his life can be divided into three stages. First 40 years and second 40 years and third 40 years. First 40 years, where was he? He was in a palace. He had privilege, power and everything. Second 40 years, where was he? I mean, he was full of ambition, but because he killed somebody, he had to run away. So the next 40 years, he lived in a kind of green pasture with wives and comfortably. And so, “Ah, this is good. I’m going to finish my life here,” but God approached him. “No, no. I want you to go into Egypt and save these people.” And then Moses said, “No, I don’t want changes. This is good. I have wives. I have children. My life is good now.” But God said, “No, your story is not finished. Your story’s only half finished. It’s not even written yet.” And He sent Moses in the wilderness. Without the last 40 years, you probably would not have known Moses. Without the last stage of his life, Moses is nothing. His life is nothing. His story is nothing. So sometimes changes are difficult, but changes make your life truly meaningful.
Changes can bring about what you are really about. And these changes can really make your life meaningful. So don’t be scared of changes. When changes come, don’t automatically reject them. Embrace changes happening in your life.
The meaning of life is not something you take arbitrarily. “Okay, I don’t have meanings. So what should I say? Oh yeah, maybe I go to St. Timothy Church from now on. That’s my meaning. Oh, maybe I go mission, or maybe I’ll be a missionary. I think that will give me real true meaning.” Oh no, no, no. Meaning is not something you choose arbitrarily like that just because you feel empty. Just because you feel meaningless, you don’t just arbitrarily choose and then make it as your meaning of life. And nor is the meaning of life out there somewhere and you have to go find it. No, the meaning of life is being formed in your life journey, being written out in your life. Because of fear of changes, if you reject changes, we will not be able to let our life write a story and complete the story. Then the meaning of life will not be fulfilled.
The meaning of life is not in the events themselves, so don’t try to create meaningful events. Because meaning does not reside in the events themselves. How the event started, what result these events brought to you, what story these events made in your life, and through all that you understand the shape of it. For example, I came to Canada when I was 19 and I went to the University of Toronto, and I studied there, and I went to a Korean Inter-Varsity Christian fellowship. And in there, by serving God, serving that group, I was called to go into ministry. So I went to ministry. Now I’m standing here preaching to you.
This is not just an accident. I believe that every single event worked together to make me who I am. So the even physical move is not just a physical move. It means something. You will create something in your life. University students who are going to different cities, just moving is not just a physical move. Because you have made that choice to move there, you will create a new life there. And you have to think about it. And in your life, some of you may start a new job. The new job is not just a physically new job, but that will open up a new possibility, new opportunities, and you will create a new pattern in your life. You don’t – you never know what that will lead to you. Some of you may have made big failures, big mistakes and because of that you suffer quite a bit, but don’t just feel bad about it. Because of those failures and mistakes, that might open up new possibilities and a new pattern of your life. Some of you may experience real hardship in life either because of your children or because of your parents, or because of life situations. You may go through really, really difficult time right now, but don’t just think that, “Oh, I just hope that these difficult times go away.” But instead of looking at it that way, when you look at carefully, “Hey, congratulations. Newlywed.” You will create. You’ll make a different person.
A Story to be Told
See, we don’t think about these things, we just do activities for the sake of doing them without even thinking about them. Events are not as important as your understanding and interpretation of your events, because every event in your life will create a certain pattern in your life. When you look at it very carefully, you can make wiser decisions in your life. So look carefully at what happens in your life. I’m very excited because, in my whole life, life stories are being written, and I’m very excited about what my last chapter will be like. Oh, not yet, but still more chapters to go. What the last part of my chapter will look like, I’m very excited about that. And I hope that my last chapter will have a sudden exciting turnaround. Maybe a new revelation.
I don’t know. It is what God, you know, does in my life. Your life is full of potential. Write a beautiful story with your life. Don’t just write it a mediocre story like everybody does. A very unique story, I want you to write with your life. Be bold, be courageous, and do something unique to yourself, and to do that you have to see what happened so far and what that has guided you to. You have to understand that, you have to see that. Without seeing it, you cannot do this. So don’t live your life mindlessly. “Oh, just because I go to school, I study. Just because I studied, I graduate, and I get a job.” This is what everybody does, but what is the unique thing that you want to do in your life? You can find that. Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor said, “There is always a story to be told about how I had become what I am now and where my current journey will take me.”
So to live a meaningful life, events alone are not enough. You need your critical insights and understanding of the events. That’s what you need. That’s where the word of God comes in. The word of God is very much important in helping you have the critical insights about life. 1 Peter, let me read, “You have been born anew, not of perishables but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.” So you had been born anew, like a new identity is given, but in verse 24, he describes what reality is like, “For all flesh is like grass and all his glory like the flower of grass, the grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever.”
Reality
Yes, the reality is the grass withers and the flower falls. That is the reality. Our existence itself can be meaningless because it will decay and come to nothing, but that was not the conclusion of Peter’s statement. His conclusion is that we are given a new identity by this eternal word, eternal truth. We are given a new what? What he’s saying is that now, God gave us the word and through that word, we see our events. Through that word, through the eyes of that word of truth, we see our life. We don’t see our life through the eyes of frail existence. We now see our life through the eyes of God’s truth. Do you see your situation through your feeble, imperfect, and limited eyesight of yourself? Or do you see your situation through the eyes of the eternal word of the truth? The great thing about the word of God is it can change your eyesight. It can also shape your inner person with a strong perspective of courage and hope. Through the Bible, you can have courage and hope. What is really important is not our reality, but the inner reality that interprets our outer reality. What interprets our outer reality is my inner reality, and what strengthens my inner reality is the word of God.
Viktor Frankl, do you know Viktor Frankl? He went through the Nazi camps, and he went really went through hell, and he said this, “No dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounds us.” The reality of the camp was this bad. I think I once explained to you as soon as they arrived, they came out from the train, they line up. Two lines. They tell you to choose a line. They don’t know what to choose. One line they choose arbitrarily and that line goes to a gas chamber, and the other line luckily survived. That’s how he survived. Every time, by what do I make a decision? By chance, I could be on the line that goes to the gas chamber or not. He said that was the cruellest reality he ever experienced, but he said this, “Even in this kind of camp, what kind of prisoner I became depended on my inner decision.” Even in that cruellest reality, what kind of prisoner I become depended on their inner decision. I believe no matter how cruel your reality may be, what kind of person you will become depends on your inner decision, and that inner person’s shape can be helped by the insight of the word of God. That inner person needs to be strengthened so that we can persevere through all our difficult circumstances.
The real faith. The real faith does not produce optimism that negates the reality and escapes into fanaticism. Do you understand what I’m saying? The real faith does not produce optimism that negates the reality and escapes into fanaticism. The real faith does not produce pessimism that sees the naked reality and escapes into darkness. Let me read it again. The real faith does not produce pessimism that sees naked reality and escapes into darkness. So the real faith does not create optimism that is just blind to the reality and then falls into a kind of fantasy. The real faith does not produce pessimism which closes its eyes to the further, the better life and just falls into darkness. The real faith produces courage that struggles with reality but always tries to see more than what you see on the surface. The real faith produces courage that struggles with reality but always tries to see more than what you see on the surface. My friends, take a bold stroke of your pen to write again the story of good news. When you read the Bible, they went through so many hardships, difficulties, and tremendous helplessness and despair. But even in that persecution, they wrote the story, and those stories are what? Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Even in the most difficult circumstances, they wrote the story of faith. They wrote the story of courage. They wrote the story of hope. And that story continues and that story was not just a story, that story was their life.
Reflection
I pray that we, St. Timothy people together write a beautiful story of hope, courage and faith so that other people read it, see it, get encouraged and empowered. I know you all go through a lot of life hardships that you cannot even share with others. I know a lot of you go through the inner turmoil that you cannot share with others, but all these things are not in vain. These things will work together to create your beautiful life. I know that you’re beautiful. Life will be written out because God is with you. God who began a good work will bring it to completion. That’s what I believe. Yes, in the past we’ve made mistakes. Yes, in the past we failed. Yes, in the past we did what we should not have done, or we didn’t do what we should have done, but life is not over. Your story is not over. God will continuously help you understand and rewrite the story.
There’s a very interesting fellow, Michael White. He was influenced by Michel Foucault, a philosopher. This Michael White guy says that a lot of psychological diseases happens because the story that they write is different from the life they lived. In other words, the distorted story is what they started writing. So he helps them to write a story again so that they can see their life in a more correct way. I think the correct way is a positive way. The way of hope, courage and faith.
So today I talked about Abraham, Jacob and Joseph. Different life stories. And tomorrow I’m going to tie up a little bit of those things together.
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