| Finding Significance in Life - Part One |
Page 1 of 3 For many years, I’ve watched and spoken to all kinds of people representing various walks of life and I’ve noticed something. People are all looking for the same thing and I can tell you what it is. They are looking for significance in life. It is that sense of feeling needed and wanted. Some people might call it acceptance. In fact, if a person does not feel accepted, they won’t feel significant either. If they feel insignificant, they think they are inadequate and even useless. Consider the situation with gangs around the world. Basically, a gang provides a place for people to feel accepted by their peers. Can you understand why they have such a strong pull on the young? Although it is a perverted form of acceptance, it still makes the members feel like they are a part of something and therefore, significant. People feel significant when they are accepted by others! I could tell you many stories of young people who grew up as Christians, yet for various reasons, ended up involved with some pretty strange outfits and groups. It is amazing what lengths some will go to in order gain acceptance. I have seen nice young girls who seemed, for the most part, to have it all together, end up in a relationship with some guy who is not a believer. Why did they do it? The simple answer is they did it to gain a feeling of significance? Again, by thinking they are accepted by certain people or groups, a person feels that sense of significance they are longing for. If you were to go a shopping mall and take a look around, what do you suppose you’ll see? You will see people who are doing whatever it takes to feel like they are fitting in. Their clothing, their hairstyles and the way they talk are all indications of their desire to belong. No matter what they think the requirement for acceptance is they will do it, whether it’s smoking, drinking, taking drugs, being promiscuous or whatever the extreme thing of the day is. The next thing you know, they are no longer listening to authority figures like parents, teachers, police etc. The problem with this is that once you start down the path of doing what ever you have to do to feel accepted or significant; you must keep doing it to maintain that sense of significance. Where does it end? This kind of thinking is prevalent among people of all ages. It does not just exist in today’s youth. The middle aged and the elderly are longing for the same thing. A person may be able to handle it better at 45 than at13, but the principle is the same. At 45, it’s called a mid life crisis. Isn’t it funny to see men and women in their 40’s and 50’s dressing and acting like teenagers? People say things like, “If I can just be a part of that bunch or that group, then I will really be somebody! Maybe if I just dress like, act like and hang out with a certain type of people, then I will gain true significance in life.” Are these statements true? ”to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.” Ephesians 1:6 (NKJV) |
