Life Stinks.....

Since the beginning of time people have pondered the ultimate question

THE MEANING OF LIFE: WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?

Today many people of come to the conclusion that life stinks?

Just think about life a moment about life. What is it?

For the average person it’s about 70 years of living,

For some it’s even shorter.

During which time the average person breathes some 30 billion times

Sleeps 250,000 hours,

Eat somewhere in the region of 76,000 meals.

Go to the bathroom 200,000 times

Sounds impressive but not very fulfilling

If this is all life is then maybe we should just resign our selves to the notion that Life sucks.

But it isn’t that’s not all their is because life is about meeting people too.

Experiences, emotions and relationships.

In doing all this stuff that keeps the machine running we also take in all that human experience has to offer.

We breathe; see; hear; taste; smell;

We love and hate, hurt and cry, laugh and think.

But for many of us even this still isn’t enough.

Life’s experiences don’t make anymore sense of the ultimate question.

And often these experiences push us further to the conclusion that life sucks.

It kind of reminds me of the story of a hamster and its owner.

Each morning Sam hits the wheel, stopping only to snatch a bite to eat,

He’s driven by some ingrained belief that all the effort is getting him somewhere.

Trudge, trudge, trudge, nibble, nibble, nibble,

With the only occasional treats to break the monotony.

That’s Sam’s life

And life for Sam’s pet hamster is almost as bad.

I guess the major reason that many come to this conclusion is simple

Life stinks because we’ve never lived it.

For many of us there’s a real sense of deadness to our lives.

Sure we breathe, function and take our place as value members of the human race.

But we really and truly fail to live.

Life stinks for many because it’s meaningless passage of time between birth and death.

Most people born and years later they die.

They eat and sleep, work and reproduce, study and forget.

Playing it safe tip-toeing through life so they don’t waken anyone else up,

with no goals no aspirations other than to arrive at death safely.

2000 years ago a man walked the earth, who was somewhat different to those around him.

He wasn’t prepared to tip toe through life quietly like most of He wasn’t afraid of waking the person next to him from their sleep.

Instead he ran around the place waking the dead, and waking people whose lives were dead.

He had a life-giving mission

John lO:lO puts it like this - Jesus "came that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly."

Jesus said that to people like us people whose existence was so wrapped up in survival that they had little time to truly know what life is.

Today life is not as big a struggle to live but we still have sense of deadness too.

Like were living only from the neck up.

But Jesus comes to breathe life into our dead shells and show us what real life means.

Jesus comes to give us what the Bible calls eternal life.

That’s not just an eternal trudging around the hamster wheel of a boring human existence.

That wouldn’t be a good thing would it???

If there is a hell and I believe there is then that’s probably what it looks like people pedalling their ways round their hamster cages for an eternity getting nowhere.

If that’s all that God has to offer then it stands to reason he’s not worth bothering with.

If life really sucks then who in their right mind would want an eternal one???

But Jesus offers more than daily struggle; he offers abundant life,

An exciting life a life that doesn’t just settle for mundane existence counting you’re every breath until you die.

Jesus offers purpose.

The sad fact is though that even Christians can fail to get this shot of life. Or fail to see it as it really is.

Christians too can see life as meaningless as mere existence.

Christians too can live like life has no meaning or purpose.

Christians too can draw the conclusion that life sucks.

There are many reasons for this.

We can get sucked into the same system that sucks the life out of people as much as the next person.

We can get hurt as much as the next person.

We can fall down as much as the next person.

The difference is that when stuff happens to Christians there can be a purpose behind it.

We may not see it yet but one day when we see the big picture we will understand why it rains on me.