The question, taken seriously
What Am I Living For?
What am I living for is one of the bravest questions a person can ask, because it means you are no longer content to just keep moving. Christianity honors the question and gives a clear answer: you were made to live for God and for love, not for the smaller things that keep quietly demanding your whole life and never repaying it. Naming what you are actually living for, and holding it up to the light to see whether it can bear the weight, is the beginning of a life that is aimed rather than merely spent. And the aim you were made for is closer than you think.
“For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”Matthew 16:26
“And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.”John 6:35
“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”Matthew 22:37-39
“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”John 17:3
Let's take the question seriously
Most of us are living for something, whether we have chosen it consciously or not: approval, security, success, a person, a feeling, staying comfortable. None of these are evil, but each makes a crushing god, because each can be lost, and each keeps asking for more than it can give back. Jesus asked the question that cuts to the bone: what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul. It is worth asking honestly what you are handing your one life to, and whether, if you got all of it, it would actually be enough. For most of us, we already suspect the answer.
The clue in the ache
There is a paradox at the center of Jesus' teaching about what to live for. Whosoever will save his life shall lose it, he said, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. The life you clutch and protect, you slowly lose; the life you pour out in love, you find. That is the opposite of the world's math, and it turns out to be true to experience. The most alive people are rarely those who lived for themselves. They are those who found something, Someone, worth spending their life on. Meaning is not found by hoarding your life but by giving it to what deserves it.
Where meaning is finally found
Jesus answered what am I living for by offering himself as the answer. I am the bread of life, he said; he that cometh to me shall never hunger. He does not merely give you a cause to live for; he gives you a Person to live for and with, one who will not be lost, who does not run out, and who loves you first. This is life eternal, he prayed, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. To live for him is to live for love itself, and to discover that the life you give away to God and neighbour is the very life you were looking for.
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Questions people ask
What should I be living for?
Christianity says you were made to live for God and for love, not for the smaller things, approval, success, comfort, that keep demanding your life and never repaying it. Jesus offered himself as what to live for, and said the life poured out in love for God and neighbour is the life you were actually looking for.
How do I know if I am living for the wrong thing?
Ask honestly whether the thing at the center of your life could be lost, and whether, if you got all of it, it would be enough. Jesus warned about gaining the whole world and losing your soul. Anything that can be taken and still leaves you empty makes a poor thing to build a life on.
What did Jesus say is worth living for?
Himself, and the love of God and neighbour that flows from him. He said he is the bread of life who satisfies the deepest hunger, and that knowing God is eternal life. Paradoxically, he taught that the life you give away for his sake is the life you truly find.