A New Year, A New Purpose

Today marks the beginning of a new calendar year. January 1. New Year’s Day. A day traditionally characterized by plans for the days to come, hopes for improvements in life and health habits, for new determinations to live fully and make the most of each moment. As such, I thought I would start my year of blogging by delving into an area of philosophy that I normally save for the end of each semester: the meaning of life.

What is the meaning of life, and how do we find it?

This seems like the quintessential philosophical question, the one that everyone asks but for which no one ever expects a legitimate answer. But believe it or not, philosophy does have various approaches to discovering the meaning of life.

Of course, there are some philosophers who think the inquiry is pointless because life has no meaning and cannot be given meaning. (Thank you, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.) Many others have pointed toward personal achievement—be it intellectual, creative, or even moral—or community involvement as the location of life’s meaning. Still others locate meaning in love, relationships, and connection with other human individuals.

I ask my students every semester to tell me all the things that make life really good, the things that, at the end of the day, make you settle back into your pillow and say to yourself, “Today was a really wonderful day.” It’s always great fun to hear their answers and write them on the board, and things like family, fulfilling work, friends, and fun normally make the list. And good food. That one ALWAYS makes the list.

Are these the things that give life meaning? Is it really that simple?

I just finished reading Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who survived four different concentration camps in Nazi Germany during World War II. Frankl found that humankind has a deep need for purpose in life. One of Schopenhauer’s arguments against the reality of meaning in life was the fact that the human experience is riddled with suffering. He’s not wrong; suffering is quite unavoidable on this earth. But Frankl found that if a person has purpose in his life, he also has meaning for it, and even the greatest suffering can be redeemed. Throughout his book, as he recounted his experiences in the concentration camps, Frankl often quoted Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” (Ironic, coming from a man who didn’t really believe life has meaning.)

I did notice something in Frankl’s teaching about purpose and meaning that he never explicitly called attention to, and maybe he never fully grasped it himself: for a person’s “why” to offer true purpose and meaning for his or her life, it must be directed outside of self. A “why” that is only aimed toward personal satisfaction or glorification will always come up short, it will always leave you empty-handed.

Faith Meets Philosophy

This is where I bring faith into the conversation, and I allow God to speak to the reality of a person’s purpose in life. But don’t tune me out just yet; I think you might be surprised by where I land.

If you’re like me, you’ve heard this conversation before, and the answer always seems to circle back around to this: The purpose of a Christ-follower’s life is to glorify/praise/worship God.

I get it. We should glorify him. We should praise him with our very breath. We should worship him at every turn. But is our God really that self-focused? Is his entire purpose self-glorification?

That seems pretty shallow to me, and not much like the God whose story is told throughout the scriptures. The God in whose image you and I were crafted.

Instead, let’s look in the sixth chapter of the book written by the prophet Micah. In that chapter, Micah responds to God’s description of the way he has faithfully loved his chosen people even through their betrayal and unfaithfulness. He says, “What should I bring before my good and faithful God, burnt offerings? A thousand of them? Maybe my firstborn? Would that be enough?” But then he acknowledges, “No! That’s not what God wants! Instead, he wants us to live with the righteousness of his own character: with mercy, justice, and humility.”

Throughout the Old Testament, God urges his people to act with mercy, justice, and humility on behalf of those among them who are unable to act on their own behalf. Those people are often represented as the orphans, widows, and foreigners, and sometimes as the poor. These are people whom society has cast aside, forgotten, or deemed “less than.” These are people who don’t have the means to provide for themselves and have very little ability to meet their own needs.

Jesus said it this way: “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” (Matthew 25:40)

I believe our purpose as followers of Christ—Immanuel, God With Us—is to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God” by standing up for and acting on behalf of those who cannot stand for themselves. And when we live fully into that purpose, I believe we will find meaning for our lives that far exceeds the meaning that any career, achievement, creation, or even a relationship has to offer.

Schopenhauer was not wrong in that life is fraught with suffering. But he was completely wrong about the presence of meaning, for a life aimed at relieving the suffering of others is rich with meaning beyond measure.

I pray that in 2026, you and I will both find ways, big and small, to live into our God-given purpose of pursuing mercy and justice in His name for those whom the world has shoved aside, and may we (with humility) enjoy the contentment and peace that comes from living a life full of divine meaning.