What's the point?

It was bound to happen. As a recent graduate of a liberal arts college, an artist-philosopher whose mind is no longer consumed by homework assignments, it was only a matter of time before I started pondering the big questions. Today, after walking several miles to Target and before studying French, I found myself asking, "What is the purpose of life?" No joke.

But it wasn't as much of a sudden attack of existentialism as it might seem. I got to thinking about the way that I am spending my days now and comparing that to how I would have been spending them if I had stayed with my plans for this coming year. That led to thinking about the value we attach to different ways of occupying our time, which led to thinking about how we can possibly measure the worth of a day's business, which led to thinking about what, if anything, is our ultimate purpose as humans. If we have a set purpose, it would naturally follow that a day spent wrapped up in that purpose would be a worthwhile use of our time.

So that's how I got there. And the answer that came to mind was (though I didn't know the source at the time) from the Westminster Catechism: "Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever." That could certainly be pulled apart into much more detail, going in depth to establish what it means to glorify God and how we go about doing that, but I think the key point here is motive. In what we are doing, are we striving to bring glory to God and to rejoice in Him always? It's not going to look the same for everyone. It's also not going to look the same for any one person at different points in his or her life, but it's a question that we need to be asking.