Life Worth Living
ight years ago, I had a parenting experience that changed my life and my perspective on meaning.
I had studied developmental psychology and taught child development for years, but no amount of education could have prepared me for life with three young children.
My two daughters were three and two, and my son was five months old. I was preparing for an important and controversial presentation to a group of faculty members. I was nervous and hadn’t slept properly for months. The night before the presentation, I prayed, “God please help my kids sleep through the night.”
“Too often, I define ‘blessings’ as health, sports accomplishments, financial security, and career success rather than the transforming work of Christ.”
Well, they didn’t. I finished preparing my presentation at 1 am, and at 3am, two-year-old Mackenzie woke up and did not fall back asleep until 4:30. At 5am, Zac awoke with an explosive diaper. Since I was up already, I let my wife sleep and got up to change him. In the middle of bathing and changing him, I remember thinking, “God, how am I going to present tomorrow? Why are you doing this?”
In that moment, I had an overwhelming sense that this humble act of cleaning up after my son—of caring for his needs, of being his father—was right at the centre of God’s will for my life, and that the presentation and demands of work the next day were peripheral. I had always defined God’s will in terms of my accomplishments. But in that moment, I understood that taking care of all this chaos in my home—of connecting with my son and daughter, of looking into their little eyes and saying, “It’s ok, Daddy’s here,”—gave me a greater sense of God’s nearness and Christlikeness than any lecture or presentation I could give or hear. In that moment, I felt peace, knowing that just as my children could put their trust in me, I could put my trust in God to take care of the next day. And He did.
In John 6, Jesus makes a dramatic shift in His ministry. The Jesus in the first half of John 6 displays earthly power, performing miracles that satisfy earthly desires (feeding the five thousand) and commanding the power of nature (walking on the water). But when the people asked Him, “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat’ ” (v. 30-31), His answer shifts the focus from the physical to the spiritual. He says, “I am the bread of life” (v. 35). Jesus goes on to describe the life-giving spiritual impact He can have in our lives; He emphasizes the value of the spiritual, saying, “The spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing” (v. 63). The transition from one who performs miracles that resolve physical needs to God’s son—who becomes part of us, actively transforms us, and begins and sustains eternal, spiritual need—was too much for most of Jesus’ followers to handle. In verse 66, we read that “from this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”
“God’s plan for my life reaches far beyond what i achieve; it’s more about who I become than what I accomplish.”
I struggle to remain attentive to spiritual matters while living in a physical world. I often define the success of my parenting by the accomplishments of my children in their education, relationships, sports teams, and musical performances—rarely in their spiritual journey. Too often, I define “blessings” as health, sports accomplishments, financial security, and career success rather than the transforming work of Christ. All too often, my faith becomes used rather than relied on, like a drunk uses a lamppost—more for support than for illumination. And yet, God’s plan for my life reaches far beyond what I achieve; it’s more about who I become than what I accomplish.
My life is a tapestry woven together through endowment and choice, lifestyle and personal experience, impact on others and being impacted by them. I may share a common faith with many others, but no one experiences their relationship with God the same way I do. After a life of wisdom, achievement, and pleasure, Solomon said that the earthly life is “utterly meaningless.” In John 6, Jesus’ statement, “I am the bread of life,” offers a truly meaningful life that earthly success cannot provide.
For me, the key to understanding the way to a meaningful life was not found where I had expected, in success as I had come to see it, but rather in the most unexpected of places—in life’s seemingly smaller tasks, in being a father, in changing a diaper on a sleepless night.
Philip Laird, Ph.D., is an Associate Provost at Trinity Western University. Philip has taught and provided administrative leadership at TWU for the past 16 years. He continues to teach in the area of forensic psychology and senior thesis. Philip and his wife, Casie, live in Langley, BC, with their six children, ages three to 11.
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