God’s Prize Is You!

Surely everyone asks, “What is the meaning of life?” It’s the subject that bamboozles so many. Very few people discover life’s answer. Can such an answer be so elusive? It’s probably simpler than we think.

Peace is central to the meaning of life. But what, really, is peace and is it that simple? And how is peace achievable through such a complex, rollercoaster ride we call life?

Perhaps—again—the meaning of life, and of peace, is so much closer than we typically think.

***

All our lives we struggle for peace,

All in all its purpose is release,

Then again—dynamic as we suppose,

Life’s ever-changing bubble is a constant repose.

Year after year we strive for the answer,

Until suddenly we realise our likeness to a dancer,

For negotiating the steps in time with the song,

Is nothing more complicated than not getting it wrong.

As we stand back and observe the typical flow,

We begin to comprehend more than we know,

God’s blessing rests in the simplicity of stride,

To enjoy, truly, the wobbling everyday ride.

The ending of the music is merely cause to reflect,

The joy of the journey and trials to deflect,

What we’re left with—unbridled and true,

Is God’s prize for life is nothing but you.

***

God’s prize for life is giving us to ourselves—the fact of self-freedom to repose in our own skin. Knowledge of God has the most inherent spin-off: to know ourselves, be at truth, and except same.

Get this: the subject of blessing and the actual prize are one and the same. The full spiritual search reveals itself done when we claim our prize, and it is—quite comprehensively—us! Better still, it’s us at full quotient of our potential, or the best there can be.

God cannot offer any better reward to us than we, personally, to ourselves. And it’s only God, and a relationship with the Divine, that can do this.

This is a strange concept: we, ourselves, apart from ourselves. We’ll have an inkling of this truth, however, if we’re being honest with ourselves; firstly in our dissonance with ourselves—notably in our experience of fear and isolation etc—and secondly, perhaps by having made the discovery. The latter of these is by far the preferred.

The value of this truth cannot possibly be understated, when all our lives we search for the meaning to it all. Then it seems a tragic irony; it was there all along, on our front porch, waiting for us to investigate, wanting us to realise; God was there with our real ‘us’ stowed.

In self-discovery, however, as with many things, it’s better late than never.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.