What is Life?

Life is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing
(William Shakespeare)

Life is like a smooth stone thrown across the surface of a river - it bounces along, until like life itself, it loses momentum and sinks into nothingness
(Soren Kierkegaard)

What is man worth? They got to do what they came to do and escaped unnoticed. What is unusual about this story is that they took nothing. But what they did instead was they change the cost of everything. Price tags were swapped. These pranksters took the tag of a $395.00 camera and stuck it on a $5.00 stationery. They repriced almost everything in the store. Still, the craziest part happened the next morning. The store opened as usual. The employees went to work. Customers shopped. The place functioned as normal for 4 hours before anyone noticed what happened. Some people got some bargains. others got fleeced. For 4 solid hours no one noticed that the values of the goods has been swapped (Max Lucado, No Wonder they Call Him Savior, pp. 31-32).

This should not have happened because we see the same things happening everyday. We a deluge by a distorted value system. We see the most valuable things in our lives peddled for pennies and we see the cheapest smut go for millions.

What causes us to elevate the body and degrade the soul? What causes us to pamper the skin while we pollute the heart?

Our values are messed up. It all began when someone convinced us that the human race is headed nowhere. That man has no destiny. That we are a cycle. That there is no reason to existence. That we are meaningless people trapped on earth that has no destination. The earth is just a spinning mausoleum. That creation was accidental and humanity has no direction.

If man has no destiny then he has no duty, obligation and responsibilities. If man has no destiny, he has no guidelines or goals. If man has no destiny, who is to say what is right or wrong? It is your value system against mine.

If man has no destiny, man has no value. Man has no future and he isn't worth much. There is no reason to be here, therefore there is no value. And then our system goes haywire. We feel useless and worthless.

And then we create false value systems. Value is now measured by several criteria; appearance and performance. This doesn't leave much to the unborn child or the handicapped or the ugly or the aged or the uneducated. We all have become nameless numbers on mislaid lists (Max Lucado, No Wonder they Call Him the Savior).

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Matthew 6:25-26

No matter how ridiculously man has switched the value tags, God is not misleading. Man has a destiny, duty and worth. No matter how hard man try to build a physically comfortable life, there will always be sorrow, a yearning and a homesickness that will rob him of rest (C.S. Lewis)

Thou hast made us for thyself and our souls shall always be restless until they find their rest in Thee. (Saint Augustine in the 4th century)

credits: COURSE 101

p.s. with great power comes great responsibilities