Does life make sense to you? More specifically, does your life make sense? If you take time to think about life, we can be challenged to make sense of it. OsGuinness assures us we’re not alone and it’s nothing new! Socrates noted long the value of living an examined life.
Os says people are asking big questions because we are experiencing the shattering of our sense of predictability and control. Many have been shaken by the pandemic and the unprovoked war in Eastern Europe and many in America have been triggered by the anticipated ruling by the Supreme Court on the topic of abortion. The big questions about life, freedom, justice, truth, being are all being asked. The Great Quest: Invitation to an Examined Life and a Sure Path to Meaning addresses HOW an individual can examine life to seek genuine meaning.
We all need an understanding of identity, belonging and meaning or purpose that is grounded in truth. We live in a world of great deception. Finding truth, Guinness argues, has never been more critical.
Guinness outlines four stages along the path to an examined life and he notes, the pursuit is all encompassing.
Stage 1: A time for questions. The question ignites the quest.
What question ignited the great quest for truth in your life? For me the question was the question of what happens after we die and it was triggered by the death of my cousin, Angie, my friend, Carol and my dad. They were 14, 17 and 43 respectively. Up to that point in my life, the only people I knew who had died were chronologically old. The death of people in the prime of life seemed out of order. It was incongruent, disruptive. It forced me to pause and reconsider how life works, what it means and where it leads when it ends.
My trigger, the thing that got me thinking was death. What got you thinking?
For those of us who on the great quest, asking questions and seeking God, it always comes as a surprise that most people drift along through life without ever thinking through things for themselves. They never ask the big questions. They never wonder. They just live until they don’t.
For those who are triggered to wonder and ask, the great quest proceeds. Guinness says Stage 2 is a time for answers. The deepest answers come from religions of philosophy or worldviews. That is followed by a time for evidence and finally a time for commitments.
This Great Quest is a thinking person’s journey toward faith and meaning for those who want to discover a rational road to faith and meaning. But the Great Quest is far more than an intellectual exercise. This is an invitation to encounter the Lord for ourselves in The Great Quest.
I’m on the great quest. Are you?
Listen to my full conversation with Os Guinness here.