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Christian Network

The source of ultimate reality is God. He is the absolute center of all that exists. All things find their ground in God because he is their first cause. When we purpose to find the final word on our lives we must look to him. When we seek the truth that defines our existence, we must find it in him.

But frequently we do not.

Instead human beings try to find their identity either in themselves or in other persons or things. This has probably never been truer at anytime in our race’s history than today. One of the core philosophical thrusts of the Post-modern era in which we live is that individuals are responsible for defining their own ultimate reality. Absolute truth is purported not to exist. In its absence we are to construct our own truth with ourselves as the ground. The problem is that this is a recipe for despair.

All the "realities" we find in ourselves, or in the world around us, upon which we try to build our existence finally lead us to meaninglessness, and from there to darkness. It is impossible for anyone or anything other than God to truly be the ground of our being. That ground can only be found in his infinite and eternal nature, it can only be found in who he is. All other alleged sources of this ultimate reality are mirages. Created beings and created things may have a certain reality to them but that reality is derivative. When we try to find a definitive center for our lives in them we elevate them to the status of God and, by nature, they are no such thing. Such elevation of the created over the Source of creation is a good definition of idolatry.

The paths these pseudo-gods take us down are dead-ends in the most profound sense of the term. They destroy our souls by removing us from our soul’s only rightful source. The most beautiful and noble aspects of even good things are contaminated when they usurp God’s place as the center of our existence. Nothing and no one is intrinsically good except He. This becomes apparent when we rely on something or someone for our meaning and purpose in life. If we rely on them long enough they turn into horrors, sickening things that leave us adrift in a place that has no meaning and is bereft of truth. Such a place is a good definition of Hell.

It is both freeing and restoring to reject the use of pseudo-gods. This seems especially true if the god you happen to be rejecting is yourself. I am glad I do not define what is real. It releases me from the incredible burden of trying to be the center of the universe! It allows me to take my place in the created order of God and to find goodness and contentment in the perfectly chosen role he had in mind for me when he knit me together in my mother’s womb. Letting God be God is a relief. It is not oppressive; on the contrary, it brings freedom from the aforementioned meaningless and darkness. They are what are oppressive.

The reason for human beings feeling the existential alienation that defines our period in history is the fruitless search for ultimate meaning anywhere and everywhere but in the God whose very being defines it. If we truly look to Him for the ground of our being we will find it and, in doing so, find ourselves as we were meant to be.