What is this life we're called to live?
I suppose I could start with an easier question: what is this life we're living?
With our overworking, busy, self-care lacking lives where spend our down time soaking in entertainment that doesn't hold any value and our lack of real, genuine relationships with other people and with God... what are we doing with our lives?
Why is it that we spend hours every day on our phones or other technology, yet we don't plug in to God's Word or to the lives of the people around us the way we should?
We're made to be with other people! We're made to have friendships and family relationships that we build up and foster, not just tolerate or begrudgingly take part in around the holidays! We're called to live for more than what we're currently living for as a society! It's no wonder crime and mental health have skyrocketed since everybody got the internet and cell phones (I'm saying this as correlation, not inherently causation). As we started to zone in on ourselves and isolate physically, under the guise that we can always connect because the ability's at our fingertips, we started missing out on genuine connection! Then we went from having cable, where you could only watch whatever was on the few channels that existed, to having a bajillion options of what to soak in all the time between the plethora of streaming services that have come about! We don't even have to leave our couches to enjoy watching relationships being fostered by characters who are being portrayed by actors. It's not even real, genuine relationships, just cinema. Yet, how many of us spend more time watching the characters in our favorite TV shows than we do spending time with the actual people in our lives. It doesn't have to just be TV shows either. This goes for video games where you're playing our the roles of someone you're not in a story that's not your own. This applies to social media, where you can scroll for hours on end without having a genuine, speaking conversation with anyone. It's the same for anyone who spends long periods of time on the internet, whether looking at pictures, learning meaningless facts, playing games, or anything else that you entertain yourself with that's just between you and a screen.
Even socially, how often do you spend time with people by watching TV together instead of talking? We've become so engrained in our entertainment that we're missing out on genuine connection as a society, and it's taking its toll. Anxiety, depression, and suicide rates have all been increasing for years, especially since Covid when nobody was allowed to hang out with other people. We're not built for the lives we've become accustomed to, and it's killing us.
We were made to enjoy life with other people, to have strong friendships and bonds with people who would die for us, and to go through the good and bad times with others. Isolation from others and seeking joy from entertainment only leads to sorrow, which as a society, we don't even know how to process. Good friends can lessen the impact of sorrow, sadness, and grief, but ultimately we also need to know how to process it. Pretending to be okay isn't going to help anybody, especially you.
We need to learn how to grieve again. We can't just say we're fine and plow on through without processing our emotions, grieving the losses, rejoicing over blessings, and lamenting with cries to God asking the hard questions and leaning on Him for answers. We can't just do this alone either; we need to walk through it with other people.
Something I've been learning lately is the value of relationships. Having a healthy marriage, solid friendships with people who walk with you through thick and thin, and overall just supportive community is a life-changer. Processing what you're going through and thinking through who you are and what you believe makes a world of difference.
A lot of people have been asking the wrong questions or, probably more accurately, asking the right questions and looking for answers in the wrong places. The identity crisis that's hit in at least first-world countries has been shattering God's desires for peoples lives. When a person tries to find their identity in a gender that's not theirs, a relationship that's unbiblical, or a name that doesn't suit who God made them to be, they will often find themselves lost instead of found. Changing your identity from the person God made you to be is a form of rebellion against Him. It's defying your Creator. These lives people are living nowadays... they remind me of the lives of the Israelites, right before they received God's wrath.
In 2 Kings, Israel's made some bad choices. They've set up idols and places to worship false gods, and even God himself, outside of where they were called to. They sinned against God in any way they could: rape, homosexual relations, murders - including slaughtering their children on altars to false gods, worshipping the stars, omens, divination through occult practices, and overall just seeking identity in how other people did things instead of God wanted them to. In 1 Samuel, they literally go to Samuel saying they want a king like the other nations have, as if jealousy and coveting were their reasons for the request. God knows it's true, which is why He reassured Samuel that they weren't betraying him, but betraying their true King: God. (They end up facing major repercussions for all this too...)
When we lose focus of who we're supposed to be following and worshipping, any number of things can take over. We can find ourselves entrapped in identity crises, seeking to discover who we are by any means other than God's. We can get lost in the things of this world, like the entertainment and distractions we use to avoid dealing with what's really going in on our lives. We don't lean on God, or often other people, to help us but insist on independently figuring things out, even if it means we suffer greatly for it, whether
a) physically
b) mentally
c) spiritually
or most likely d) all of the above.
What, then, is this life we're called to live? We're called to live for God and for others. To live in community with God and people is to live your best life. You find your identity in Him. With strong, solid relationships (which I acknowledge, you may need to go find some of those if you don't really have any, and that's not always easy), you find that you don't have to go through anything alone. You can celebrate the good things with other people who will be happy for you, and you can work through the hard times with people who won't kick you when you're down. It's wonderful having good, godly relationships with people you can count on. And, that's what we're called to do: not to walk through this life alone, but to face it and enjoy it together.
Now, that's not to say you can't still enjoy some entertainment, but don't let it consume you the way you consume it. Don't spend so much of your time and energy taking in things of the world that you neglect the relationships God wants you to have. Live the life God's calling you to: a life with Him and with people. I know it can be scary, and it's not always fun or easy, but it's so much better than going through life alone with your phone and TV. Don't do it alone. Learn to be who God called you to be by being a good friend to others, by finding your identity in God, and by experiencing everything this life brings from the best to the worst. Don't process it alone either, but with friends.
If you need a place to start, try getting involved in a local, Gospel-centered church. You might just be amazed at what your life looks like when you foster godly friendships and together follow God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Trust me: it's one of the best choices you can make.
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