Making Sense Out Of Life

Making Sense Out Of Life

By Paul Allen

man staning on rock

 

Unless severely handicapped from the get-go, our entrance into this world of living beings, most of us humans begin to assess living from an experiential perspective. This is coupled with direct programming from parents, teachers, peers, and, oh yes, the ever-present media. 

The problem is that much of it is incorrect, much of it is based on strong biases, and a lot of it is propaganda not meant for the well-being of the whole of humanity. Maybe not knowing any better, we shrug our shoulders and swallow the input.

These are issues dealing primarily with our brains, although we’ll see that this is somewhat an oversimplification.  To begin with, we assess present and forward movement largely from the operation of the five senses.  This limited living is restrained mostly to what we see, smell, taste, feel, and hear.  This doesn’t seem weird.  It seems rather natural. 

And, indeed it is, limited to what appears relevant to nature. We have a tendency to protect this viewpoint because it is a way to protect us from clutter and complications while we’re doing this living.  This line of thought is to promote shallowness and keep us from honest evaluation of life.

To show their importance yet limitations, what if one of our senses, say, the mouth became inoperable for communication. As long as the others worked, we could sign or write, yet miss our old ways of verbal expression. We would feel a little less than complete.  What is there about us that makes us feel this way? Or, what if we had aural damage and lost our hearing? 

Couple this with the fact that in a given case, hearing aids might be useless.  Looks like signing and/or reading lips is the next substitute. We can only surmise the person would feel a little cheated. What a handicap to be robbed of the world of sound! What can a person begin to lean on? Where is there hope?

In a way, the eyes possess unique perceptibility in their multi-function capabilities.  When one is so used to assessing everything around or available to him, to lose this faculty loses more than object recognition, be it beauty, phenomenon, or potential danger.  What about the many issues of analysis, or challenges, or opportunities of service and aid. The other faculties without this one can be helpful, yet life confronts us with so much more. 

What about our exhibition of the deeper things of this living? What about the values we reveal that might influence others? Where do these deeper, intangible issues originate?  Is this what they call ‘soul’?  We learn that soul is a combination of mind, will, and emotion.  The mind is a computer, a calculator. Will is the decision maker connected to both mind and emotions.  Emotion is the outlet which springs from the other two.  This seems more complex than just the five senses.

We’ve talked a lot about the five outer faculties, and brain function.  But, the deeper things such as the spirit of man are often ignored for two main reasons. They seem a little hard to comprehend. Then, if we engage in serious search, it might change who we are, what we’re about, or what the future holds.  That’s rather heavy, sort of like God-stuff.  But, since we all have the same eternal fate, maybe it would be too great a risk to ignore the spirit and its future.  We often call it the ‘inner man.’

Spirits don’t just come out of nowhere. God is Spirit, and has given us His Holy Spirit to teach, guide, and help us.  Since we are made in His image, we are a spirit, we have a soul, and we live in a body. Yes, there are evil spirits, those who were once with God, but rebelled and fell from heaven. 

God has made us with a void inside that only He can fill. That’s His design.  Persons who shun a relationship with Him try to fill that void with mostly bodily and material substances. Making sense out of life? It seems the sensible thing to do is to go to the Creator and Sustainer of everything to get it right. Life is too short to chance coming up short. The sobering question:  have I put too much importance and priority on my faculties and soul? My spirit-man won’t go away, nor will its Creator.

 

Ojo Del Lago
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