Life Ain’t Easy
Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. (John 17:17)
Life ain’t easy, and it shouldn’t be a walk in the park. However, God has called us to reflect, respond, and rejoice. If done with integrity, life is full, often demanding, and sometimes rewarding. Unfortunately, in our contemporary society, entertainment is the constant focus. Our value and worth are habitually determined by how many likes we have on Facebook or if we influence TikTok. These obsessions have driven us away from faith, family, and friends. As a result, most of us feel empty and alone.
Our lives can be meaningful beyond the shallowness of our social media profiles. Thomas Oppong, in his article “A Logical Approach to Life,” challenges the reader when he says, “For a better life, think forward, backwards, deeper and wider.” Oppong challenges us to think logically. Our Christian faith is logical. Christianity is more than mere belief or commitment but is also an intellectual reality. Oppong describes the logic process this way, “It’s like running almost every important choice through a mental model (thought framework) to ensure you don’t miss unexpected adverse effects.” As people of faith, our thought framework is the Judeo-Christian tradition and our interpretation of the Scriptures.
Logical thinking’s goal, according to Oppong, “is to stay on the right path in life most of the time.” The right path is the moral imperative of faith, as learned in the Bible. Our Biblical theology is logical. The Old and New Testaments instruct us through stories, parables, history, prophecy, and many other ways, to provide examples of healthy and meaningful outcomes. The challenge is to avoid the false comfort of simplicity. Oppong quotes Thomas Gilovich, “People will always prefer black-and-white over shades of grey, and so there will always be the temptation to hold overly-simplified beliefs and to hold them with excessive confidence.” Black-and-white thinking dulls the rich complexity of our faith.
Today, do not be afraid to ponder the depths of our Christian faith. God is big enough to be there as we look forward, backwards, deeper and wider. The Christian faith is truthful and sufficient to stand up to the critical eye of human logic. Find meaning in the joy of embracing the Christian faith through the lens of the Judeo-Christian thought framework. You can find wisdom and knowledge through the divine logic experienced from Genesis through Revelation. It ain’t easy, but it is more rewarding than the latest TikTok dance.