Here’s my next book: Go after God and you will find meaning. The end.

We all know life is more complex than that. So the point is not to tell you something obvious that you already know. The point is to help each other as a fellow sojourners in this thing we call life.

Some parts of life are pooh-pooh.  I didn’t say that.

It was actually a guy by the name of Paul. Paul was a phenomenal Christian leader a few years after Jesus Christ died and rose from dead. He had a great life by his cultures standards. He had lots of accomplishments he could brag about and he was also very devoted. Apparently he was very passionate as well as very smart. All in all, he had it going on. This is what he said about life and all the stuff in it after he encountered Jesus Christ:

“(I) put no confidence in the flesh – though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more… But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him.”

That sounds similar to what the psalmist said, but the psalmist was talking about the one-thing that is needed. Paul, on the other hand, is talking about what isn’t needed: me and the next-thing.

We live in a day and age of various kinds of self-help. People are encouraged to look within themselves to find answers to what life really means for them. The fallacy here is when people look inside themselves all they will find is more of their unhappy selves. This creates a cyclical pattern which makes the ruts of their lives deeper. It is the stagnation of the soul.

Let me say this in another way. We are pretty jacked up already, why would we look to ourselves for help? This is similar to what Eve was tempted with, when we look to ourselves for help; in a sense we are trying to be our own gods. What we need is traction to get us out of the rut and help us move down the road. This is why the writer of Hebrews says, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.”

Have you ever felt stuck in that rut?