“For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” 1 Corinthians 6:20
Glorify God and enjoy Him forever. That is the chief end of man. So simple.
It isn’t a long to do list and it isn’t a situationally dependent complicated activity. Just imagine if the answer to this question was all about your credit rating and income, and the house you need to buy. Imagine if our faith said that the chief end of man was to put in a certain number of hours reading, or to have a certain number of children. Imagine if we thought that you had to work exclusively inside the home, or exclusively outside of it. Imagine if the church confessed that we had to have immaculate yards, sew all of our own clothes, grind our own wheat, or get a certain number of meals for the needy delivered. Imagine if the chief end of man was to be fit, or beautiful, or wear designer clothes, or have a home that could be featured on a blog. Many of these things are outside of our control, if not outside of our desire.
Now I know, and you know, that most Christians would not put any of the above random requirements into words as a statement of faith. But many of us slip equally ridiculous things into our own private goals and expectations. So while it is rare (probably not rare enough!) to hear a church state that you have to have at least four children, it is not at all rare to hear the sorrows of a woman who always thought that she had to do just that or she wouldn’t be a real Christian. It is not normal for Christians to express these things positively as a statement of faith, but it is absolutely common place for them to express it negatively as a failure. What I mean by that is, “I am not a real Christian like those other ladies in our church because I work part time outside the home” or “I am just doing the worst job because chronic pain and personal suffering has made it so that I can’t have large groups over for dinner regularly.” Or for a woman to feel less than a good Christian because she still has a bunch of baby weight (or bake sale) weight to lose. Read More
So here’s a thing that happened. Rachel and I started a podcast! It is nothing if not professional and glamorous. We basically get ourselves a coffee, drive somewhere and park (generally behind Goodwill, just to keep it classy) and then we chat in the car for a bit. Often we talk over the top of each other, sometimes we forget to turn off our phones and Mom calls us in the middle. Sometimes we’re more tired and slap-happy than other times – for instance we’ve noticed that if we do this after dinner then we are 200% more likely to invent words. But. Nonetheless. We are posting them.
If you’ve had a two-year-old in the family, you know that the heart of man is prone to disobedience.