“Where your pleasure is, there is your treasure; where your treasure, there your heart; where your heart, there your happiness.” –Augustine of Hippo

What does it really mean to live life fully?

These days it appears the pursuit of happiness eludes many people. Satisfaction and fulfillment in life seem unobtainable, not to mention finding contentment. We have pursuits toward pleasure, leisure, achievement, fun, work, relationships, love, or even the absence of conflict or trouble in our lives. Consciously or non-consciously, we sometimes pursue power, materialism, sex, control and money in our pursuit of purpose or significance. However, none of these seems to satisfy us for very long, even the good and healthy pursuits. So, what is the meaning of living a full life?

“Meaningless!”  That is what the writer of Ecclesiastes had to say after his lifelong pursuit of meaning and contentment in life. Through wisdom, he sought after all that life had to offer: pleasure, laughter, building things, achieving great material possessions and wealth, servants, and everything his “eyes desired.” What he decided from his quest for significance was that enjoying life was important, but that it only comes from God, not from the pursuit of anything but Him: A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?   To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil — this is the gift of God.   Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work — this is a gift of God.   He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart.

Fulfillment in life not only comes from God, but it is the very reason Christ came: “I have come that they may have life and have it in abundance” (or, to the full!). John 10:10. God’s heart and desire is for us to enjoy life, to be full of joy. Ultimately, living life fully is found in understanding that God wants to bless us, wants us to have a healthy balance of our material possessions, our work, our relationships and to trust Him for the conflict and difficult times in our lives. Many times we forget or just don’t consider how powerful our creator really is! We tend to only draw upon limited amounts of His power available to us. We determine for ourselves how powerful God is and we set limits on the amount God can give us or even how often he can provide and help us. Be open to God’s help. Make the shift to spiritual dependency. Give yourself permission to trust in God and believe in his abundance. Whatever word you give to our desires for fulfillment, satisfaction and contentment- whether it is joy or happiness- pursue life looking to God, expecting Him to give you meaning and purpose.

“Expect your every need to be met, expect the answer to every problem, expect abundance on every level, expect to grow spiritually.” –Eileen Caddy

[God] … “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”-Ephesians 3:20

Blessings,
Mike