For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Ephesians 2:10

If you have been reading this space lately you will have seen my post in response to The Jesus Revolution movie last week (if you haven’t yet, please take a look). Well, Friday evening Rebekah and I settled down to watch another drama, The Whale, and I immediately realized both stories address essentially the same question.

The question is, “”Why do I even exist? What is the point?”

The (Whale) story is built around an essay written by the main character’s daughter (Sadie Sink), who becomes reacquainted with her father (Brendan Fraser), as he is dying due to complications from congestive heart failure and morbid obesity. The essay is a response to Herman Melville’s classic novel, Moby Dick.

I feel bad for Ahab as well, because he thinks that his life will be better if he can kill this whale, but in reality it won’t help him at all. I was very saddened by this book, and I felt many emotions for the characters. And I felt saddest of all when I read the boring chapters that were only descriptions of whales, because I knew that the author was just trying to save us from his own sad story, just for a little while. 

Ellie’s essay

So why am I writing about this?

Well, I believe a lot of us try really hard to distract – both ourselves and others – from our own sad story. But eventually we all find ourselves in circumstances where we are forced to confront the truth about who we are and what our life is all about.

This is of particular interest to me now, because I observe so many people who are confused about what life is and why it is that we exist, and the simple, uncomplicated, beautiful truth so easily gets lost in the middle of the distractions.

So, in an exact opposite situation to Captain Ahab “trying to save us from his own sad story”, millions of people end up distracting themselves from the story that has the potential to actually save them. Ironic, huh?

When we see clearly that we were all created by a God who loves us, and for the purpose of – as the Westminster Shorter Catechism declares – glorifying and enjoying God forever, then our place and our purpose clearly involve bringing that pure, unselfish, regenerative love into all our relationships.

When the focus of our existence shifts away from ourselves and toward serving God and others, then it is not difficult to default to enjoying life without the need to control others, to use others, to prove others wrong, to defeat others etc. etc. etc.

God’s plan is for each one of us to become so filled with light, and love, and grace, and mercy, and kindness, and acceptance… that it spills out all over the place and gets over everything and everyone.

This is what The Whale movie (well done, but also very difficult to watch) got me thinking about.

The idea is of particular interest to me now, because I believe that so many people are confused about what life is and why it is that we exist – and so the simple, uncomplicated, beautiful truth so easily gets lost in the middle of the distractions.

The good news story is ours to live out loud. No judgment, no being better than anyone else, just living into the truth that we are God’s handiwork, created to do the good stuff our creator always intended for us to enjoy… – DEREK