182 Final Thoughts

Meaning: “conveying a significance that is not directly expressed . . .”

Meaning has many properties, Gentle Reader.

Collectively, I have come to see that meanings emerge and prosper as one does the seeking.

Ultimately, I have come to see that meaning in life means coming to terms with life and its purpose.

Most profitably, I have seen that purpose in life means making meaning a priority for living.

Right purpose in life means assuming responsibility to seek right meaning. It involves acknowledging that meaning-making is a path to wisdom. It means intentionality in living that sets the course of one’s life, expectations and choices.

To be a meaning maker is a choice, Gentle Reader, and at its best, one’s choices must be active, ongoing and right.

Consummate right choice means giving our future to God and living life as it comes, in relationship with Him.

Undoubtedly, for me, there is no separating the significant truths of God and Meaning.

In another vein, as in every era, we live in a time of mixed meanings, some promoted by worldly ideologies and some by people of faith in the Judeo-Christian God. And though diverse and, as yet, imperfect in its promotion of meaning, this Judeo-Christian faith has consistently worked wonders over the centuries, wonders of goodness and abundance to humankind. The same cannot be said of perishable worldly ideologies.

As mixed in meaning as the world is today, Gentle Reader, it is also confused with mixed responses to meaning. Even the believer in the Judeo-Christian Way is subject to struggle and suffering in sorting out his own (and that of others) mixed thinking, all as a result of worldly influence.

Thus Scripture adjures believers to be “in the world but not of it,” meaning to practice clarity in thinking and discernment in choice even as one moves through a confusing world. On a daily basis this is not an easy feat. One must practice awareness and that intentionality I mentioned above. Conscious living—it’s not a cinch. Habits emerge over time in life, Attentive Reader, and bad habits are so easy to make and good ones to the contrary.

At any rate, in my aerobics class, the teacher has taught us to think “stabilize to mobilize.” That means that our posture is to be anchored in the stomach muscles while lifting our chest, dropping our shoulders and chin, prior to motion. She confided that as one ages we all tend to curl in our posture—the result of lacking a good habit. I find this particularly relevant advice, this stabilize to mobilize, but not only for my posture. I now have generalized the phrase to my thinking, tweaking the phrase to—stabilize in Christ Jesus to mobilize in life. In taking her advice, I have also taken it a step further, finding larger significance in her words and greater application.

This was my choice as a meaning-maker.

Now, every time I think of the modified phrase (stabilize in Christ to mobilize in life), it reminds me to employ this approach in my thinking and doing, demonstrating good and right choice making. In short, dear Reader, as Scripture advises, I am embarked on the road of making walking with Jesus my habit. I am embarked upon putting a check on myself, making in my person less of me and more of Christ in me--His character, conscience and conduct--, simultaneously benefitting myself and others.

Stabilize in Christ Jesus to mobilize in life—hmmm, to my way of thinking, this is a perfect example of the power of choice, of right choice, of meaningful choice and of right meaning-making.

To be continued. . .