A while back, I met up with my men’s group over a nice hot meal at a Korean restaurant.
There is something about eating together that makes people more relaxed and open in conversations. In fact, the deepest, honest and most vulnerable conversations I have had were over meals.
One of the guys shared about his recent disturbing experience. He witnessed a woman being hit by a car. He said, “she did everything right. She pressed the cross walk button, looked to the left and to the right and then crossed the road. But, a speeding car hit her.” He was paralyzed by just looking at her mangled body fly right in front of his eyes because of the impact. Later, after the police arrived and got his testimony he went home in shock.
The woman was taken to a hospital with life threatening injuries (He read about it in a news article the next day). He confessed that the disturbing image of the incident continued to linger vividly in his mind.
This story led us to reflect on life, death and suffering. To some degree it was an overwhelming conversation. We shared about our fears and concerns. All of us contributed to the discussion from our own experiences reminding ourself that life is a vapor. It is here today and gone tomorrow. The moments we get to live today is not easy, but nevertheless should not be taken for granted.
We continued to ponder further on life. Life as we experience it is affected by sin. Our world is full of injustice, destruction, selfishness, pain, suffering, sickness, death, war, crime and various kinds of inhumane activities. We can’t ignore it, nor escape it. The scary thing is that it arises from within us as well. It is our present day reality.
Imagine what would have happened if my friends and I had ended our conversation on living in a messed up world with nothing to look forward to. We would have returned home with our heads held low, downright depressed and hopeless.
But, we chose to end with GOD.
The reality of GOD being present in the midst of all this chaos is comforting. Believing in the good news of Jesus coming and living in our midst, facing the same chaos and suffering to identify with us, and then overcoming sin and death by his death on the cross so that we could experience GOD and live for his redemptive purposes – makes our lives liveable and meaningful. Not only that, it keeps our hopes alive and puts everything into perspective.
So what makes our chaotic lives liveable? GOD makes our chaotic lives liveable.
Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). None of us are exempted from trouble. We can’t escape the sin affected realities of our day, but GOD with you and me in this chaos is able to make our lives come alive and be fruitful. If it wasn’t for GOD, revealed in Jesus, I wonder what living a life in this chaotic world (with nothing to hope for and no purpose to live for) would look like…
…just wondering!
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Samuel Williams is co-founder & content director at Fluid. He is also the teaching pastor at Avenue Community Church in Toronto, Canada.