LIFE’S PURPOSE

Someone has aptly said, “Living without God’s plan for our life is like sewing with a needle without thread, or writing one’s biography with a pen empty of ink.”779

Some time ago, psychologist William Moulton Marston asked three thousand persons, “What have you to live for?”

He was shocked to find that 94 percent were simply enduring the present while waiting for the future. They would describe this as waiting for “something” to happen—waiting for children to grow up and leave home, waiting for next year, waiting for another time to take a long-dreamed-about trip, waiting for tomorrow. They were all waiting without realizing that all anyone ever has is today because yesterday is gone and tomorrow never comes.780

All have been given a bag of tools,

A formless rock and a book of rules.

And each must make ere life has flown,

A stumbling block or a stepping stone.781

“He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how” (Friedrich Nietzsche, a German nihilist).782

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light; and

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much

Seek to be consoled, as to console;

To be understood as to understand;

To be loved, as to love;

For it is in giving that we receive;

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and

It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Attributed to Francis of Assisi783