In the early fall of 1970, as a freshman at Syracuse University, I didn’t want my life anymore. Not that I was suicidal, I just didn’t have or feel any reason to do anything. Being a deep thinker is a blessing. When you have no truth, it’s a curse. I hated the experience of being someone that was so aware. It’s very lonely. Being away from my high school friends, and thereby being away from all distractions and debauchery, I had plenty of time to think and be aware.
What I was aware of was that life made no sense and had no meaning. All those around me were happily (in my opinion at the time, mindlessly) going to classes, working hard to get good grades so they could graduate and get a good job, so they could marry and raise a family, so they could continue working at their good job and retire well-off, so they could die and take none of it with them. I mean, you do all this stuff, and then you die. Why bother?! It all made no sense to me. But why wasn’t anyone else seeing this and feeling this way?
No honest person is or can be content with the reality of impending nonexistence. Those who claim to be are self-deluded. A desire to live eternally dwells in the inmost place of every human being. Like I was able to do before I arrived at college, most people keep themselves deaf to the voice of reality through loud, endless distraction provided by noisy, fleeting pleasures. It is a sad state of affairs.
For me, back then, if all was relative, if there was no Truth, then life made no sense. If there is no Truth, all this hard work and activity makes no sense. You work hard and do all this stuff, and then you die. Again, why bother?! If all is relative, it also makes no sense to have any moral limits. “Being a good person” is ridiculous and dishonest. Without Truth, being good must be for some selfish reason, and that’s not being good, that’s being selfish. I had no reason to “be good” and so I wasn’t. But at least I was honest. But who cares. You can see this is a bad place to be when you have no answers, when you have no truth.
Had I known about him, or had I ever opened the Bible, I would have been good friends with and encouraged by the Teacher in Ecclesiastes. I agreed with him, “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” Ecclesiastes 1:2 (NIV). I guess what keeps most people alive and not taking their own lives is God’s common grace in the form of a blissful unawareness. Perhaps awareness of how things really are is part of God’s work of regeneration, just before He sends someone to share the gospel. That’s how it was with me.
I wonder what kept Pilate going. In the gospel of John, chapter 18, verses 33-38, governor Pilate is interrogating Jesus to find out if there is any basis for a charge of wrongdoing against Him. In verse 37, Pilate exclaims, “You are a king, then!” Pilate is probably exasperated by now with the Jews disturbing his morning by bringing him a lunatic. Jesus answers, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” Pilate’s reply is telling. “What is truth?” Then he goes out and announces to the waiting Jewish leaders, “I find no basis for a charge against him.” And he might have added, “He is a harmless madman. Why not just let him go?”
As I said, I wonder what kept Pilate going. Maybe just enough wealth, sex, parties and other distractions to keep him from thinking about his question too much.
Truth is something felt, and only God can perform that in us. Otherwise, without God giving faith, all we have is impotent knowledge of facts in the head. Knowing truth is a powerful thing with world-changing effects. It is God who performs truth in the heart. Knowing truth is something (Someone – John 14:6) God performs in the heart how and when and with whom He chooses. Ask and wait humbly upon Him for it (1 John 5:14-15). Only He can show it to you, and He will.
“We can learn nothing of the gospel except by feeling its truths. There are some sciences that may be learned by the ear, but the science of Christ crucified can only be learned by the heart.” Charles Spurgeon
“The heart has its reasons, of which reason does not know.” Blaise Pascal
God reveals truth to the heart of those who humbly ask and wait upon Him for it.
“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” Romans 8:32 (NIV)
“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.” John 16:13 (NIV)
Thanks for reading,
Bruce
