Purpose in Life

 Greetings to you all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

     Deuteronomy 6:4-6 says, “ Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:  And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.  And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:”

     My Father was a truck driver and retired as one.  I once asked my mother what she thought I should be when I grew up. She told me, “You can be anything you want to be except a truck driver.”   Dad’s schedule was always flexible and we never knew exactly when he would be home.  It was all local driving but it would depend on how many stops he had to make to drop of loads or pick up a new load and take it back to the terminal.  Dad’s brother, Harry, would do long trips and would often be gone for weeks before returning to his home.  Mom wanted me to do something else in life.  When we think about it, what is our main purpose in this life?

     We often train our children to pursue a career based upon their test scores in high school.  Some are funneled towards a college and some professional route while others are guided towards a specific vocation in industry.  We had groups in high school such as FFA and FHA which guided boys and girls to farming or home making.  We even had FTA which was for future teachers of America.  Still, our main purpose is not expressed in high school planning for a career but should be focused on the “Shema” as we see in the passage above.  Our main purpose in life is to “know God and to enjoy His presence forever.”  That is achieved by actually doing what the passage above exhorts us to do.  The Lord Jesus Christ repeats this exhortation in the New Testament.  Look closely at it as we are to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, soul, might and these words shall be in your heart. That means that you have to have them memorized.  The above phrase was important to the early Israelites and is still used today but it has become a mere formality  of kissing the Scripture as they go into a home as it is in a little container on the doorpost of every Jewish home.  Some don’t even know what the passage says.  We fall far short of actually doing it ourselves.  Imagine, if you will, actually loving God with all of your hear, mind and strength.  You will need to be meditating on Him in all that you day, every moment adn to commune with Him through prayer and to recall His Word in our hearts with every fiber of our being.   Then, you will know Him and slowly but surely, begin to enjoy His presence forever.  Praise God that we can know Him by looking daily, hour by hour, into His Word.