Today, we are on psalm 24 and I’ve spent a lot of time in this one. David starts the psalm by saying, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.” How often do we acknowledge this? At the end of the day, everything that we have and are belongs to God.

I tend to think of all my possessions as my own. I mean, I worked for them and I guess I have a strong sense of entitlement. The thought of it all belonging to God is really quite humbling. Instead of asking myself what I want to do with my life, I start to realize that it’s not about what I want. If it all belongs to God, then my primary purpose becomes seeking and fulfilling his will for my life. Something about that is very refreshing, and something about that is very challenging as well. Even though I know it’s not the case, I like feeling like it’s all about me. That my life is primarily about my happiness, my success and my sense of fulfillment. There are a lot of people that ascribe to this philosophy. It feels really good for a while, but there is isn’t a whole of purpose to that path of existence.

If the highest thing we live for is ourselves, our quality of life will be very poor. If the primary question we’re asking at the beginning of each day is…”What do I want to do today?”….then life will never feel like it works. I lived in Charleston, SC for a long time and the number of one way roads in downtown Charleston is straight up obnoxious. There are certain ways you just can’t go to get to your desired destination. Sometimes going forward means going way out of your way before you actually head in the direction you want to go in. This is the case when it comes to purpose. If we have been trying to figure out our sense of purpose through the path of self-fulfillment and gratification, we need to backtrack. We need to go a completely different way and that will get us where we ultimately want to go, faster.

Psalm 24 is screaming to us that this world and this life are all about God. He is the star of the show and we are supporting actors. The role and purpose that we play are significant, but not indispensable. In order for life to make sense, we must start orienting our lives around the purposes of God. Our prayer should sound something like, “God, thank you for this day. I know that it’s all about you and not about me. I pray that you would have your way in and through me this day. Use me however you want to. I know that you’re writing a story that is much bigger than me and I thank you that I get to be a part of that story. Here and now I give you my time, my talent and all that I have for you to use however you want to.”

As we seek to lose ourselves in God, it is only then that we will truly begin to find ourselves. C.S. Lewis said, “I believe in Christ like I believe in the sun-not because I can see it, but by it I can see everything else.” As we focus on God and orient our lives around him, we will then and only then begin to discover why we are here.