Secret to Life

I’m super giddy right now.  Filled right to the brim with energy.  Kind of like champagne that’s been shaken up in a bottle and the cork is stuck.  Why do I feel this way?  I’ve stumbled upon a secret.  The secret to the universe as it were.  I seriously feel like I’ve just unlocked the mystery of this thing we call life.

And before you go on and say “good grief Kelsey, you became a Christian a long time ago”, that’s not what I mean.

It’s much simpler than that.

And it all comes down to this: relationships.

We were created—from dust or a rib bone or however—for relationships.  That’s it.  Period.  Amen.

We weren’t created to learn the alphabet, or to master our times tables, or learn how to swim, or to memorize the Apostle’s Creed.  Forget school, forget college, forget work—those are all just time fillers. 

No, we were made for each other. 

Stop and ponder that a moment… how does this make you feel?  How does it make you feel to be so tied to those around you?  Your very essence important because they too are important?  Not because of anything great you’ve ever accomplished; not because of what great work you do; not because of the spotlight you’ve fashioned for yourself.  But because God created us to be in community, His community.

I learned a new word this week, one that only makes sense if you believe what I just told you.  The word comes from Zulu: Ubuntu.  The concept of Ubuntu can be boiled down to this punchline: I am because you are; you are because I am.

Isn’t that beautiful? 

At the end of life, you are going to look back and be measured not by what you managed to accomplish while here on earth—no you are going to be measured by your love and how you loved others.  That’s it.

And guess what?  We were created for this!  That means that to love is as natural as to breathe.  It isn’t something that can be graded or taught—it’s ingrained in our very DNA.

Unfortunately, society today has made it so hard for us to not only find our identity in love, but to be that love.  Individualism creates barriers between me and you, keeping me from reaching out and loving the person beneath all those layers of self-protection.  Society doesn’t want us to embrace the vulnerable—it wants us to buy insurance plans so we never have to feel vulnerable!

And that is life’s greatest lie.

So I dare you today to love.  I dare you to trust your instincts and reach out to someone.  I dare you to be who God created you to be.