I question consistently whether I’m living a worthy life. Hence the reference to that ending scene where Private Ryan, now an old man kneeling at the grave of the Captain who saved his life, turns to his wife and pleads “Tell me I have led a good life. Tell me I’m a good man.” … Indeed, I find [the question of whether am a walking dead man] terrifying. Perhaps it’s my Catholic upbringing with its focus on guilt. Perhaps it’s my exposure later in life to evangelical Christianity and it’s focus on being saved. Or perhaps it’s simply something I focus on in case this whole notion of God’s mercy and grace, where I live and hope today, are in error.
At the heart of my friends exposition lies the question: “Does life — my life — have any meaning?” This is one of those questions which never seem to go away, no matter how much we try to drown it out. We hear, day after day, about how we are cosmic accidents, amino acids and random chance tossed into the whirling blender of evolution to produce a highly sophisticated human Margarita. In such a world, ruled by the cruel logic of cosmic chance, questions of meaning and purpose would seem frivolous and irrational. But nevertheless, they just keep popping up, like moles in the movie Caddy Shack. Even the fundamentalist secularists, the Dawsons and Hawkins and Hitchens of the world, can’t seem to tear themselves away from the language of purpose and intent, as they speculate how random chance and natural selection “choose” to create us and “select” the “best” genetic mishaps to produce that animal which we call man.
Ask your average man on the street what his or her purpose in life is, and expect in response some snide comment, humorous retort, or — if they be halfway serious — something approaching a short-term goal. So their purpose might be graduating from school, passing their exams, becoming an attorney, getting laid this weekend, or getting a better job. Such responses are indicative of a profound shallowness that is typical of a time where we possess everything but that for which our hollow hearts hunger.
We often confuse goals with the idea of purpose. The concept of purpose or meaning in life presupposes something beyond ourselves. It implies that we are part of a larger picture, a grander scheme, some overarching game plan that is vaster than ourselves, yet capable of including us in the fullness of its accomplishment. The idea of purpose does not necessarily mandate belief in a deity, although it does lead quite naturally in this direction.
Inherent in the concept of purpose is an innate sense that we are aligned in some way with a greater good, a larger existence beyond what we can measure and perceive. It implies that we are not just one small part of a complex machine, but rather an integral part, even an indispensable one, that the design cannot fully accomplish its purpose without us.
If we confuse our goals with our purpose, we will inevitably experience frustration and unhappiness. If your goal is to graduate college, will you have a purpose after you graduate? Hardly. Such achievements are simply a marker, an indicator that points to another goal, which is larger and further out of reach. Upon reaching our destination, we immediately set out to achieve a new goal, whether it be becoming a professional, a carpenter, getting married, or making a lot of money. By simply setting our goals for the future, we believe — or want to believe — that we are moving forward with purpose. But once these newer goals are reached — or equally so if we failed to reach them — there is an inevitable emptiness, a sense of, “Is this all there is to life?” When you are finally successful in that career you have been working toward for decades, why is it that you find yourself so unsatisfied arriving at this long-sought destination? If your goal is to raise children, what will you do when they grow up and leave the house? Your goals have been achieved, but you still haven’t achieved your purpose.
The result is too often seen: the divorce, the new marriage, the philandering, the drinking, the obsessive pursuit of money and prestige and power, and an unholy host of behaviors which are far more destructive than satisfying. Such may serve in the near term to fill the emptiness which comes when goals are substituted for purpose, but they do not fill that inner need for being part of the greater good and accomplishing something of lasting value in life.
In my own feeble experience, having made a myriad of such mistakes myself, I have, I believe, finally stumbled upon the paradox of purpose: I know that I have a purpose in life — and I don’t know exactly what that purpose is. Nor, I suspect, will I ever fully know it this side of the undertaker’s icy slab. This is life in the realm of faith: that mysterious, almost intangible sense that you are on the right road, while being able to see neither your feet on the ground nor the path along which you’re headed.
As of now, my goal is to serve those who have been incorporated into my life as family, friends, and patients. I fulfill my purpose by being the best physician possible for my patients, being a good husband and father, and being a loyal friend. It’s a given that I fail to meet these lofty ideals often and imperfectly. But this is the standard against which I measure my conformity to purpose: a small shaft of light which casts just enough illumination to guide me towards my next step.
It is evident that my current endeavors to attain high ideals do not encompass my life purpose in its entirety. If I am a good physician, a good father, a loving husband, and a loyal friend, I am following my life’s purpose as best as I can discern. If my purpose is centered on being a good physician, what will be my purpose tomorrow should I be injured or incapacitated and unable to practice my profession? While my life may change drastically, my purpose will not. Although I will still have an ultimate purpose in life, the way I achieve it may undergo radical and wrenching changes, with agonizing violence.
It is here that I must rest entirely on the idea of grace — that there is a hand guiding me which does know the path and the purpose, and may in an instant radically change the rules of the game in order to more fully implement that larger purpose in me. To live in such a mindset requires confidence in the existence and unfailing goodness of God, even while doubting that very existence and goodness more often than I care to share. Without grace, I am left to the ruthless serendipity of slavery. I am constantly wondering whether I am living up to a standard, or whether God is punishing me because of this change in course, or perhaps simply being capricious or vindictive for some past behavior. If my God is immutably good and gracious, my life’s purpose will thereby be good by design, and will often be invisible to my blinkered eyes.
To have purpose in life is to have confidence in the goodness of God, and a willingness to follow and trust in places I do not wish to go. To salve the fear inherent in such an unknown trust, there comes a measure of inner peace that arises not from understanding, but from trusting. For it is only when we walk by faith, not by sight, that our lives can truly begin to have that transcendent purpose, which is the only worthwhile goal in life.
