What is the purpose of your life?

Written by: Prof. Tomislav Ivančić, PhD 

Lately, I have been dealing a lot with the question of the meaning of life. What is the meaning of life? People are constantly wondering if after death they will go to Heaven, Hell or Purgatory. They ask themselves: “Does God like me or not? Am I dear to God or not? Are my sins forgiven or not? Am I in God’s grace or sin?” All these questions are questions about the meaning of life.

What do we need to do to be in grace, to be born after death for eternal life? Here on earth, only one thing is important, not to miss eternal life. Is it worth living twenty, thirty, fifty, or a hundred years on earth, if after that we will be in Hell, or if Purgatory awaits us until Judgment Day?

Life on earth is like a waiting room. Here we are just waiting for the moment when the Creator of the world will tell us – you are called, come to Heaven. So, we are all waiting. The only important thing is to be sure that we will reach Heaven.

That is why the question of the meaning of life is fundamental. It is not a question of philosophy, intellect or thinking, but it is a question of existence, to be or not to be.

You are the thought of the Creator

The very word purpose, purpus means to be with a certain intention. Someone had an intention with you. God conceived and created you. The only question is, are you in harmony with his intention. In other words, God has a task for you here in the world, something you should live and do. You are wondering what it is. You strive to be in line with his intention or goal.

Or better still, the purpose of life is the question: Why was I created? Why do I exist? Why do I need to be here? Why do I suffer? Why do I have to die?

All things in life require an answer. Because, we do not want to die, nor did we ever want to be born. We weren’t even there to be able to want to be born. And so, we wonder who decided we had to come into the world.

What is the meaning of my days? Why do I have to grow old? Why do I have to live so many years? Seeking meaning means looking for answers to the questions “why”. Seeking answers means asking yourself, “Who put me in the world?” If we ask father and mother, they don’t know why we are in the world. We came to our parents without them knowing who would come to them. Neither priests, nor professors, nor scientists, nor politicians, nor the army, nor the police, nor any wise man knows the answer to that question. The only one who has the answer is the Creator of the world, God. Philosophers say that if He did not exist, He should be invented. Man’s life has no purpose if there is no God. If there is no meaning, then there are no answers to the fundamental questions. 

Man does not know whose nature is, whose are the clouds, whose are the moon and stars, whose the sun is, whose are the children playing on the playgrounds, whose is the grandmother who is barely walking, whose is a bird flying, whose is the rose which has blossomed and is so fragrant, who sent it.

You can’t make a rose, you can’t make a child, it is born to you, “it was given to us”, the parents say.

Therefore, the most important thing in life is to find God. But when we find him, we have not yet found the answer to the question: “Why me?” Surely all of you who are reading this know that there is a God and even believe in Him, you know how to read a book called nature, you know how to think and ponder, you know that Jesus came into the world and therefore we believe in Him. That historical man is God. Our God is not unknown, he lived among us, he showed himself. Therefore, God is not far away; he is not unknown; he is not a mystery. Nevertheless, the question remains: “What is the purpose of my life?”

What should we do to be in mercy, to be born after death, for eternal life.

The riddle of the meaning of life

Usually young and healthy people think that their purpose in life is to get married, have a job, do this and that, have this or that, give birth to and raise children, get a good pension, and end up buying a grave site and lie in it. What is the meaning of such a life?

We also think that the purpose of life is sought only by people who can work. But what is the meaning of the life of an aborted child? He is a little martyr. What is the purpose of the life of a child who has died in his mother’s womb?

What is the purpose of the life of a child who was born and died when he was three years old? Has it done anything in life?

What is the purpose of the life of a young man or girl who died just when they graduated from university and wanted to get a job, wanted to get married? They were speeding, they crashed into a rock and were gone. What was the meaning of their lives?

What is the life purpose of a child born with a disability? What does this child have to do to be saved? Imagine how many children are handicapped, how many people are in psychiatric wards. What is their purpose in life?

Let’s imagine more, how many atheists are there, how many people of various other religions. What is the meaning of their lives?

And what is the meaning of the life of a politician, writer, musician, artist, soldier or general? What is the purpose of a scientist, a university professor, a teacher, a peasant, a worker? What’s the purpose of the life of an old woman walking with a cane and barely crossing the street, crying and being fed up with everything because she’s afraid of death? What is the purpose of a dying man? What’s the purpose of someone being on death row, or someone being killed by terrorists? And what is the purpose of a terrorist? What is the purpose of all those who persecute Christians? What have Christians done to society that they should be persecuted? What is the meaning of ideologies and ideologues? What’s the purpose of a bandit being in jail? After all, what’s your purpose as you are reading this? What are you supposed to do? Where should you go? What do you need to change in your life?

Just as a child in the mother’s womb must be born into this world, so everyone must be born into another world. Because there is not just this earth. The earth is nothing compared to the universe, and they say there are other universes. What then is heaven and who knows in what universe it is? What is the meaning of our body, which at the moment of death we “undress”, lose, leave, and we go on? Where are we going?

When we think like that, then we conclude that the question of the meaning of life is not easy to solve at all.

Accept and love yourself

The meaning of our life is, first and foremost, to be what we are. You did not create yourself. Therefore, you cannot give meaning to yourself. Finally, you can’t even know what the meaning of your life is because you don’t know what is all you can do, you don’t know when you’re going to die, or what are all the things that are going to happen to you. You don’t know if it’s important for you to do something special in life and what it is. If there are seven billion people, what is the purpose of all of us? And everyone is an original, everyone is a person and everyone has their meaning, just their unique place, their original body and soul and everything else.

Therefore, the meaning of life is only in accepting ourselves. Because God created us. Yet have we ever accepted what we are?

Are you sick, old, or handicapped, tired, or just a child, married, a parent? What is important in your life? When you accept yourself, then you have accepted everything you can and should do. When you accept and love yourself, when you realize that you did not give yourself to yourself, but the Creator of the world, who is good, gave you as a gift to you, then you realize that you are the most beautiful gift you can receive.

The meaninglessness of life arises when you start muttering against yourself, when you start complaining and saying, “God, why did you create me like this?”, And we do this especially when we suffer or get sick.

Each of us has only ourselves and in ourselves all that the Creator has given him.

The moment when, instead of muttering, we accept ourselves, when despite the pain and torment we are going through, we say, “Let it be, Lord, you probably have some good plans with this; or something good will come out of this” then we praise God because by doing so we believe that He is good. And He cannot be other than just good.

If you suffer and if you are in pain, it is not because God has given you pain and suffering, but because there is sin in the world, which destroys our organism and all that is good. There was no suffering before original sin. Even after our death, there will be no suffering in heaven. But here on earth, because of sin, we are cast out of heaven, and sin attacks us, we are subject to it, and we are slaves to sin, says Jesus. That is why suffering and torment are here. And we cannot free ourselves from sin. What use is swearing and protesting against the Creator that we suffer, instead of saying, “Never mind, I have sinned too, let this be for my penance, I will endure. If our defenders during the Homeland War were in trenches, in the winter and frost, in the water, and they were able to withstand bombings just to liberate the homeland, why couldn’t I endure hardship, for some good that my family, me or my homeland needs?”

The meaning of life – it’s you! Understand and accept yourself as you are, old or young, male or female, Croat or some other nationality, it doesn’t matter, you are a human being, created by the Creator! When you fully realize and grasp that, the Creator is happy. Say, “Thank You, God, it is good, I feel great, I want to be who I am! You allowed me to go through that pain, endure that agony, experience that particular hardship. Never mind. I know it’s for some good cause. It wasn’t in vain.  Jesus, if You went to the cross and You were not guilty at all, why wouldn’t I go to the cross, I, who am terribly guilty? Why shouldn’t I suffer something for the sins of others?”

The meaning of life is to accept yourself with all the things that make you, that you are. Accept yourself because you are a Croat, a Catholic, because you have that particular vocation, because you are married or single, because you have children or you can’t have them, because you have a job or you are unemployed.  Thank God. Be grateful for yourself. Fall in love with yourself. Love your life because only with your life can you come to heaven, not with someone else’s. Until you accept yourself, you have nowhere to go, you have no “ship” to travel across the abyss of death into life. When we accept ourselves and our lives, we will do exactly what we need to do.

God puts each of us exactly where we need to be to accomplish something. Even if a child has died in his mother’s womb, it may make sense; it says something to the child’s parents and the people around them. If a child is aborted, it tells us all how inhuman and vicious we are, because we know there are so many married couples who long for children. We should accept ourselves even when we have committed such a crime, because then God forgives and then that child will also experience God. After all, you chose to love him and you regret aborting him, and then everything will be fine.  

The search for the meaning of life is something amazing. That is something we have not done so far. None of us accept ourselves. Everyone says they don’t like this or that on themselves and so we reject ourselves. Let us accept ourselves, let us say: “God, thank You for my legs, arms, lungs, heart, stomach that torments me, eyes and ears … Thank you! I accept. I want to be exactly what you made me!” And herein lies the meaning of my life!”

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