Response-Able and the Gift of Life
Why What You Do Matters Most
Big subjects, like God, you, me, and the purpose of life, can be framed by the idea of response or the ability to respond (thus, response-able). As humans, we know we are alive because we move and take action. Indeed, we verb all over the place! All of life is a response to what is true about our lives; whether we respond by affirming or denying the truth, we respond.
A simple way to envision the reality of being a person who responds to what is true is the fact that we have a body. As an embodied person, it is now your choice, right now, as to how you will respond. Will you choose to eat and move in ways that serve the body's design? Or will you choose to eat and not move in ways that are contrary and counterproductive to the body’s design? You are able to make a response, which will you choose?
So, it is true that you are a recipient of the gift of life! You are breathing! There is much evidence of this; the most obvious is the fact that you are presently reading these words. The life we have received is a gift from God. God caused this reality to be true today. He is the author and designer of life. God gave us life and calls us to live it, to respond to life’s reality in alignment with how He designed life to work at its conception.
Making a rightful response to the fact of one’s possessions of the gift of life is your responsibility. It is our responsibility as sentient beings to live our lives as they have been designed by the designer, created by the creator, and given by the giver. This is a fundamental plank of ancient Christianity. The responsible life of the human being is one of holiness of heart and life, one marked by growth in connection to God as one’s Creator, as one who is made in God’s image and after His likeness.
“ So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Genesis 1:27-28
By faith in God’s Word and His leadership (Lordship) over our lives, we live into our identity as persons. We, in turn, are able to respond rightly to God by offering our lives to Him in thanksgiving. This self-offering is our joyful response to God first offering Himself to us in His Son.
How will you respond? We answer that question each moment of each day. God's invitation is to grow in your daily, moment-by-moment, awareness of the holy ground you are standing on and the holy design of your body that God in Christ wills to fill with His presence.