What’s the Story of Your Life?

by Dr. Alan Hix

What is on your mind as we start this new year? Some people choose to look forward and imagine all the possibilities that lie ahead. Others breathe a sigh of relief in hopes that this new year will be better than the last. And still others look back upon the year just past to celebrate their successes or to mourn their failures. All three approaches have something in common. They each are the results of the human struggle to discover the meaning of life.

Before we can seek to discover life’s meaning, we must first address the question: Does life have meaning? Toward the close of Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth, the title character reflects on the meaning of a life marred by betrayal, murder, war, and loss. He murdered his king to become a king, and he has fought to maintain that position of power. A victim’s ghost is haunting him, his guilt is torturing him, his enemies are closing in on him, his wife has lost her sanity, and now he’s just heard that she’s killed herself.

In this soliloquy Macbeth is a man for whom life has ceased to have meaning.

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

In this moment, Macbeth is feeling that life is absurd and devoid of purpose or meaning. Everything he did to become king will soon be erased by his story coming to an end.

Have you ever had one of those moments in which you wondered if there is a purpose for your life? Have you ever felt like all you can do is to put one foot in front of another with no real sense of where your life was going? When you think about the story of your life, do the seasons of pain stand out more than the seasons of blessing?

In Psalms 2-7, David has been crying out to God for deliverance from his enemies and relief from his distress. If this were all we had from David, we might suspect that his life story reflects a life without meaning or purpose. But 40 // January 2023

David doesn’t stop on this somber note. In Psalm 8, David declares that our value and purpose as human beings comes from being the pinnacle of God’s creation.

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:3-5).

In these verses, David shares his amazement at the value God places on mankind. God created us as beings with both value and purpose. David helps us to see ourselves from God’s perspective without all the emotional baggage that often blurs our vision.

Macbeth found his life hollow and empty because he was focused on himself and the power he craved. His story signified nothing because he had no place for God in his life. What David does is to help us see the story of our life from God’s perspective. God sees us as created in his own image, with a purpose to reflect his glory.

At the beginning of this new year, let us commit to a life that signifies something—reflecting God’s glory in every aspect of our story!

About The Author Dr. Alan Hix is an Associate Professor of Christian Studies at Shorter University. In addition to being and educator, he has served churches as a pastor, been involved in mission trips to Africa, Canada, and Alaska, and participated in archaeological excavations in Israel for several years.