LIFE: A NEVER-ENDING JOURNEY

In the beginning, however the beginning began – big bang, six-days, whatever, we human beings came upon the face of the earth – by direct creation of the Creator, through evolution, whatever – we are here. How we got here, when we got here, only God knows. It does not really matter except for those who think it matters. What matters is that we are here. Once here, our journey begins. It is a never-ending journey.

What is that journey? It is a journey to become what we believe we were created to be. Created in God’s image, according to God’s likeness (Genesis 1:16) we now spend the rest of our lives trying to become truly like God, “perfect in every way”, as that old song has it. We never fully get there, never arrive at that destination until we die and meet our maker in death. Until then life is a never-ending journey to become like God.

That may sound or seem like chutzpah. How dare we believe that we are to be like God? Only God is God. We will never even come close to that sort of perfection. To state that that is our goal seems like we truly have a superior opinion of ourselves. On the contrary, what it means is that we have the ability to be better than we now are. We have the ability to make today better than yesterday and tomorrow better than today.

The fact that today may end up being worse than yesterday and tomorrow worse still is beside the point. Imperfect people are imperfect. We mike mistakes. We do what we know we should not do and not to what we know we should do and do so intentionally. In other words we sin and we sin every day which is a clear mark of our continuing imperfection. It is also a reminder that we can do better.

The road to becoming like God is long and winding and fraught with obstacles all along the way. Some of those obstacles are of our own making. Some are caused by others. Some just happen because we are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even so, none of that ends the journey even as it makes it more difficult at times. The journey ends when God says that it will end and that is with our death.

The greatest obstacle along the road to personal perfection, to our personal desire to become more like God each and every day, is that we hardly ever give much thought to the truth that that is supposed to be our goal. We simply live from day to day, sometimes just hoping to survive. And, yes, while we are aware of our failing and shortcomings, our sins of commission and omission, we still all too often fail to see the big picture, namely what our goal in this life is to be.

What this means is that we have the opportunity to make each day better, to become a better person, to learn from failures. God, who created us is God’s image and likeness, would not have created us to become like God without giving us the grace and strength to do so. We simply need to do our part.