The Purpose of Life

Time, the basic commodity of life, is the avenue from which all activities of life are created. Time is one of those things shared by all mortals, it affect us constantly. Because we are eternal beings, time is not our natural vastness. It is part of the brief and short mortal framework in which we are to overcome by faith, including faith in God's timing.

Brigham Young called time “the property which we inherit from our Heavenly Father.” (New Era,Child of Promise, August 1993)

We cannot choose how much time we have; Heavenly Father is the ruler of time. However, we can decide what we will do with our time. We often, say we don’t have time. When actually, we all are allotted the same amount of time each day. We have 86,400 seconds, 1,440 minutes, or 24 hours a day; 168 hours a week. In reality, we are blessed with more than enough time. We spend time on the things we value. By measuring and observing where we spend our time, we can gain a fairly accurate assessment of what we value in life.

Jesus said, "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Matthew 6:20-21)

We cannot recycle or save the time allotted to us each day. With time, we have only one opportunity for choice,and then it is gone forever.

Jesus taught about time when He said, “Seek not the things of this world but seek ye first to build up the kingdom of God, and to establish his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33)

We are to assign first, time to God and to His work; everything else in life is of second priority. If we do not choose the kingdom of God first, it will make little difference in the long run what we have chosen instead.

As regard to material possessions. Jesus taught that “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.” (Luke 12:15) Consequently, we should not lay up for ourselves “treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.” (Matthew 6:19)

Furthermore, the treasures of our heart should not be what the scriptures call “riches and the vain things of this world”.

The “vain things of the world” can include things such as our property, pride, fame, and power. As to all of these, the scriptures remind us that we cannot carry them with us.

Probation is another important aspect that deals with time. We are here to prove ourselves to see if we will do all that the Lord requires of us. We need to make evidence to ourselves what type of being we are and want to be. When we fall short of the Lord’s expectations we can repent over a period of time, this shows Him, our hearts have truly changed.

Heavenly Father wants us to be good stewards of our lives, which involves time. It pleases Him, when we strive to balance out our time. The purpose of this life is to prepare to meet God. Will you please allow this scripture to leave a lasting imprint on your hearts.

A TIME OF PREPARATION

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

"A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

"A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

"A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance . . .

"A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing . . .

"A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

"A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

The Bible describes hope as an “anchor of the soul” (Hebrews 6:19). Now, I’m not an expert on anchors or how they work, so I did a little reading. Apparently anchors are used not only to keep your boat from leaving the shore when you don’t want it to, but they can also be used to keep your boat from sinking in a storm. It doesn’t sound intuitive to me, dropping a heavy chunk of metal to the ocean floor when you are trying desperately to stay above water, but there you have it.

Imagine you are a little boat on the ocean. Faith is like choosing your direction. In order to know where to go, you look to God for the correct heading. The destination God chooses for you will not be some jaunt to the nearest island for some good fishing, but a life-changing journey across the sea. You decide that you want to choose the course God has for you, and you start sailing out from land and everything familiar. However, as you sail into the open sea, you invariably encounter storms. These are not like the occasional storm that used to wash into shore, but colossal waves that threaten to sink you.

Here’s where hope comes in. You already have decided that you want to follow God’s course, but now it’s tempting to abandon your design. Hope keeps you safely hanging on long enough for the storm to pass and you to get your bearings again. God promised you could make this journey with His help, and hope is believing in that promise even when things look bleak.

The Apostle Paul wrote in an epistle to the Romans that hope comes through “patience and comfort of the scriptures” (Romans 14:4). The scriptures teach us what things we can realistically hope for. If our hope is not something promised in scripture, it is merely wishful thinking.

It’s also important to remember that hope is delayed gratification. Probably the most memorable book I've read to date is Some Miracles Take Time by Art Berg. In it Art relates how he became paralyzed from the chest down following a tragic car accident. With only partial use of his upper arms, he learned to eat again, to dress himself, and eventually was able to drive again, and work independently. Again and again he defied doctors' expectations. But as the title indicates, it didn’t happen overnight.

Paul further taught that hope is a gift of the Spirit (see Romans 15:13). Gifts of the Spirit are available to disciples of Christ only if they are living worthily. One cannot be breaking the commandments and experience genuine hope.

Finally, I like these words on hope from Paul to the Colossians:

If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister...

God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: (Colossians 1:23, 27)

Hope is a principle of being stable and firm in that faith that started you on the course of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is not always easy to weather the storms of life, but if we constantly seek that hope that God has promised the faithful, He will not fail us in our time of need.