I came across a quote by W. Gary Phillips and William E. Brown while doing a Topical Bible Study on the topic of Meaning. The quote says: “But the human restlessness present in every heart drives us to seek out a reason for our existence.” and “… many who endured the [Nazi] death camp were not the most hardy in physical make-up but those who had an internal reason to live.”

What caught my eye from the quote was the observation of there being restlessness in our hearts. I have recently graduated from NUS. After graduation, I have not been very successful in finding a job, and so most of my time is spent at home. During the circuit breaker period, I found it rather easy to slip into a feeling of restlessness. At the beginning, I was not too worried about the job hunt since I was prepared to have to wait for a rather long while. Also, I was thinking that I could join the Vacation Training Programme (VTP) by the NUS Navigators, so it was not like I was wasting my time.

As time went on, however, I began to feel some pressure from my family, and together with hearing from many friends about their successes in landing a position, I began to lose my optimism in God. Simply spending time in fellowship and studying about God’s character began to feel like it was ‘not enough’.

In the book “How to Live Out Our Youth” by John Ha, there is a part on imagining your life to be like a river that is charting out its course over a period of time – the longer it proceeds in one direction, the more its course is set, and as a result it becomes more difficult for the river to change its direction. I realised that me losing that optimism was a sign that I was beginning to let my worries over my future career determine the course of my “river” rather than trusting God to chart that course for me.

I was glad when I did the study because it felt like it came at a time when I really needed the assurance. The study reminded me that many things we chase in life, including our careers, cannot give lasting satisfaction – it is only through God that this can be found. In Ecclesiastes, King Solomon tried various ways, but found that all things were temporary and meaningless, and that the only life worth living is a life lived with God as its purpose. Without the right purpose, a person will not know what to work towards to or how best to live. Finding a good and right purpose in life is therefore imperative towards shaping the way we live.

I found it great to know that when our meaning in life is a little unclear, we have a God who is very clear of our meaning. It is also great to know that we have a faithful God who does not want us to lead meaningless lives. For me today, I might not have been very clear in knowing what exactly to do with everything in my life, but I am thankful that I have a God who is very clear in knowing what He wants me to do, where He wants my life to go and is very willing to let me know what that is.

21 July 2020