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Existentialism
By admin | February 4, 2010
Hebrews 3:1 “…fix your thoughts in Jesus.”
 My first week at seminary I learned a new word: “existential.” I soon found out that existentialism is a philosophical movement centered on individual existence. Our culture is generally very existential. We often begin from the perspective of our own ego. We think first about our opinions rather than examining either the big picture or God’s opinion.I have found in answering e-mails that people react according to what they think. In actuality, as part of the Christian movement, we as individuals should not start with our opinion. Rather we should seek God’s opinion. It is very easy to respond from our own existential perspective. It is much more difficult to begin discerning God’s will in any one circumstance. As we filter life, not from our own perspective, but from God’s perspective, it changes everything. We begin seeking God’s will through prayer, Scripture, experience, and reason. Or, as we learn in Confirmation, the Methodist Quadrilateral. Life, truly, is not about us and our experience. Rather it is about God’s will. The other day I was loading up things from the apartment to the car to bring to work: my dry cleaning, my lunch, my backpack, a large painting, and lastly, my dog. I had spent some time whining to myself about how I wish I had a garage and how challenging it was to live in the apartment. A young woman who lives in my building stopped me. She is in flight school and she asked me to pray for the situation where a plane had crashed two days before and one pilot was found and a search was underway for the other pilot. In her request, she told me of another crash that had happened two years ago where two men had been killed. As I prayed, I prayed for her and others who were in flight school as well as praying as she requested. As I was going to work that day, I thought perhaps God wishes to use me in the apartment. I see things, unfortunately, from my personal perspective and from the existential experience of what I feel and think. I felt ashamed as I rode to work that I wasn’t more open to simply being wherever God chose to use me. Life is not so much about how I feel. It’s about how God chooses to use me. We, as a culture, are much too much concerned about our own thoughts and comfort. It behooves us, as Christians, to move from the philosophical existential experience to a deeply Christian understanding of life. If we believe God guides us and uses us as He will, then we may sometimes find ourselves in places we would not personally choose. Our lives are greater than the sum total of our experience. Our lives, if we are Christians, are about being available to being used by God. Probably, I am the only minister that young woman knows in Pensacola. I believe God knows exactly what He’s doing and, as Christians, we constantly surrender our will to God. Prayer: Dear God, please use us. Amen. |
Topics: The "Enough" Series |
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