The Real Meaning of Life

I originally started wearing Christian tee shirts to share my faith, to inspire others, and to show that I am not ashamed of being a Christian. Then one day, I began to sin, but looked down at my shirt and read the message. So now it helps to remind me to be on the straight and narrow path.

And God knows I am old and unable to do much, and scripture says God will not ask of you anything you can’t handle, so I like to think He is using me to care for these three special needs people that live with me. And I’ll say it again, I’m not anything special, God is doing the work, He is just using my hands to do it with.

I’ve never heard the voice of God, but wouldn’t it be so awesome to do so? I mean, I’m sure God has spoken to me in other ways, through my conscience I’m sure, but to actually hear the voice of God calling you would be wonderful, wouldn’t it? I mean physically hear it, like Samuel.

Samuel heard the voice of God so distinct that he actually thought it was Eli calling him, and three times he got out of bed and ran to Eli saying, “Here I am”. And now, we have Samuel hearing God call Him to be a prophet. “Who shall I send?” And Isaiah replied, “Here I am, send me.”

What faith one would have to have to answer the call of God. And I don’t mean every day stuff, like being called to be an ordained pastor as your career, or being called for a special occasion. My late wife, bless her heart, certainly wasn’t a Satan worshiper by any means, and I supposed she answered to a higher power, even though she didn’t give God the credit for it. But one period in her giving life, she started her own program called “Operation: Soupbowl”. Every evening she made a pot of soup, and I’m talking about a restaurant grade and sized 5 gallon pot, of some kind of soup; ham and beans, chicken and noodles, cheese and broccoli, nothing fancy but still hot, filling, and nutrition, and she filled styrofoam bowls of soup and delivered it around town.

We used to have a 100+ year old hotel in town, from the looks of it you could tell it stood there in the days of dirt streets with horses and wagons parked in front, and this hotel had become the permanent residence of many old bachelors, divorcees, and widowers who rented the rooms by the month. She would visit there delivering soup to those on disability or a meager Social Security income. She had contacts in the school system who would divulge information on poor and needy families, and she delivered soup to them, and she used a variety of other methods to identify those in town who were on a fixed income, or who were alone and couldn’t find it easy to cook for one, and eventually, she had a regular route set up.

One evening, she asked me if I would deliver the soup for her. Being a worry-wart, my first questions was, “Are you feeling okay?”, and she replied she wasn’t feeling up to par. So I loaded the boxes of soupbowls in the back of our station wagon and headed out to cover the route. I was a fireman back then.

I stopped by one house, occupied by an elderly widow woman. She wasn’t destitute, but was one of those that didn’t cook much for just herself and usually had just a sandwich for supper. I remember walking up to her front porch with the bowl of soup in hand and knocking on her door. When she answered, it was quite alarming.

She was frantic! She couldn’t speak, just made some grunting noises, and was in a state of very high anxiety, one in which you immediately know something is very wrong. I began to analyze the situation, and being an Emergency Medical Technician, it only took a split second to see that one eye was wide open in a panic, but the other eye was drooping, as was the entire side of her face. She was also having difficulty with that entire side of her body, and I immediately recognized the signs that she was having a cerebral vascular accident; a stroke.

I reassured her that all was going to be okay, helped her to a living room recliner, then found her telephone and called for an ambulance (we didn’t have cell phones in those days…I come from the distance past, the 1900’s). Then I waited with her, reassuring her until the ambulance arrived. Obviously I had the knowledge of going on, but no equipment with which to evaluate her aside from taking her pulse and counting her respirations.

When I got home, my wife was anxiously awaiting me. “How did things go?”, she asked. I could tell by the sound of her voice that she knew it wasn’t the normal run. So I explained that when I delivered the soup to Mrs. X, I found her having a stroke.

That’s when she admitted to me that something just “didn’t feel right” that evening, and she couldn’t put her finger on it, but she knew I had to deliver the soup instead of her. Of course, she attributed it to “woman’s intuition”, But now I look back and wondered, did she hear the voice of God saying, “Who shall I send?”, and she replied, “Here I am, I’ll send my husband!”

All joking aside, would you be willing to “go” if God asked, “Who shall I send?” Would you be Isaac who willingly went to his death altar with his father because even as a young man, his faith was so great he was willing to lay his life down for God? Would you be Moses when you’re simply tending to your job and suddenly you see a burning bush? How about Samuel who answered the call of God when he thought it was Eli, or David when no one in his nation was brave enough to go up against Goliath, or perhaps Elisha who stopped everything in his tracks and abandoned his life to follow Elijah?

God certainly has the power and ability to do these things himself, but if He did, someone today would like write it off as magic, or as the Pharisees did when they saw Jesus working miracles, blame it on someone who was possess by the devil. That is why He uses people like you and I to do His work. His Will will be done. Are you willing to help fulfill it?