But Why? It’s the question that drives parents crazy with their kids because their “why’s” never stop. As adults, and as we come up with ideas on how to have a better life and be happy, we can often forget to incorporate the “why” and give it the primary focus. Often the only time we ask “why” is when something goes wrong and we hit a wall. Yet, “why” should be the first word we should verbalize and internalize when we start any endeavor or belief.
Simon Sinek’s insightful research, on How Great Leaders Inspire Action, is one of the most watched Ted Talk of all time. Why? because he clearly explains its power. Brene Brown’s research and highly viewed Ted Talk, on Vulnerability, goes on to reveal that the people who have the happiest life know their “why,” and more importantly believe and know their worth. They have “whole-hearted” connected happy relationships. And, the Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, and in his top Ted Talk, What Make a Good life, Robert Waldinger, tells us, that even though when asked what brings happiness to our lives, it’s not the top 2 choices – fortune and fame. He revealed in the longest study (75 + years) ever done on happiness, that the single most significant factor in finding happiness, which included living longer and having a healthy life, all came down to one thing. It was having a quality (not quantity), strongly connected, and supportive (most often found in long, committed and generally nonconfrontational marriages) relationships.
What questions do you need to ask in order to nail down your why?
Are you confident that you are worthy of that why? And most importantly does your why help you attain that relationship or relationships that will bring you long and lasting health, happiness and ultimately bring you joy?
Here’s the answer to my “why.,” the reason I believe in my worthiness, and the one relationship that has affected all the other relationships I’ve attained and brought lifelong happiness to my life. Even more so, it has brought me joy. Knowing my “why” has caused me to be at peace even during pandemics and through all of life’s uncertainties and challenges. My knowledge of “why” has enabled me to endure during times of faltering health, financial instability, emotional unrest, relational disruptions and even the death of loved ones.
My “why” is found first and foremost in the Father of Creation, and my Maker.
In the first chapter of the Bible, Genesis 1, the Bible documents God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit –the trinity- “us” (Genesis 1:26) speaking. The Word (John 1:1) spoke the world into existence but “us” wasn’t satisfied with a world without relationship. God made mankind “in His image,” Genesis 1:27. Man was made in the “likeness” of God to be personal, relational, and know our worth in God. We are God’s prized possessions and were made for His enjoyment and to be in a relationship with Him. Paul quotes the most intelligent men of his time, Greek intellectuals, in Acts 17:28, reminding them and ourselves today by saying “’For in Him (God) we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’”
We have an unrelenting desire to be restored to God’s perfect relationship.
Nothing will make us happy until we can reconcile our relationship with our Creator. This nagging desire in our soul gets muddied by the plans and schemes of the Liar and Deceiver to steer us off course. Satan who caused the disruption of sin preys our fallen and selfish desires to distract us from restoration by twisting our thoughts. He distracts and misguides us to believe that contentment and the solution to our problems can only be found in wealth, fame and power. He uses substitute and deceptive desires causing us to lose our desire to find God.
God is infinite and perfect. We aren’t. But the DNA that God placed in us of His own likeness never stops seeking perfection and eternal life. Satan knows this and uses that desire. They are the very elements that keep us striving for more and for seeking to attain a cure to the endless ache of shame that pounds within us. It’s a constant drumbeat that we’re not enough or have value. Shame was the result of the devouring viral disease of sin entering into God’s perfect creation. We’ve all been infected with Satan’s evil. Sin caused man’s separation from God bringing finality to our life on earth. God cannot exist where sin is present – imperfection and we were separated. It is why Jesus, God’s son had to take on the skin of man.
Alas, the all-knowing perfect God had a plan from the moment of sin’s infestation.
Even from that first moment, God’s love for us and His desire to reinstate our personal relationship with Him and life eternal commenced. He knew how to solve the problem – fix it. God sent His only Son, Jesus into the confines of human skin and into the sinful broken world so we could visualize His redemptive plan of restoration. God sent Jesus so that we could comprehend God’s “why,” believe in His love for us and His worthiness so that we might know our “why” and believe in our worthiness. He wanted us to know that He sees and knows us intimately and He wants us back with Him. But someone had to pay. Someone had to be responsible and take the punishment. A life had to be given and blood spilled. Paul, the brilliant apostle, explained it this way in Hebrews 9:22, “… the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Without payment for that original sin, the Cure – the blood of a perfect man, Jesus, we would forever remain separated from God. Restoration would be unattainable.
My “why” – our “why” is because sin entered in, and God wanted us back. Jesus came that we might know the truth, be set free to believe in God’s worthiness and our worthiness and be set free from sin’s shame. We are wired to never stop pushing and trying to find our way back. God made us that way because His only desire is for us to know Him. He already knows us. He made us. The world is infected with the worst infectious disease of all time, not COVID-19 but the pandemic of sin. But when we know our “why” we may temporarily feel the broken world’s disasters, disruptions, and uncertainties but we will never have the lasting sting of death. Our last earthly breath may leave our body, but our soul will never stop breathing in God’s eternal saving breath.
What’s your why?
