One cannot live life without having a goal or a purpose. For some people the goal is material, and hence easy to see and achieve. For example, if my goal in life is money, then I give all my time and thought to making money, and physically see it being made. For these people it is easy to see a purpose in life and this seems like a secure way of living a fulfilling life.
For others, the goal is spiritual. Here the goal cannot be defined in the same way as a material one. These people do not know exactly what they are looking for or how it will come about. For these people, life is much harder to live, since assurance is often plagued by doubt. These people walk in darkness and often find themselves questioning their very existence. There assurance comes from a different source and it takes faith to live such a life, not knowing where one is going. There assurance comes only in the form of glimpses of the end – salvation.
Both types of lives encounter doubt and fear along the way, but each must deal with it distinctively. One cannot answer spiritual question whith material answers, or vice versa. The laws of one are not the same as the other, although they can be translated into each other. In other words, the material world need not contradict the spiritual world nor does the spiritual world have to destroy the material. The Christian spiritual life for example, recognises the distance between the material and spiritual worlds, but believes that the material can be perfected by the spiritual. As the first book of the bible tells us, God made the world good and it was humanity which corrupted it. God however, through Christ, is making all things new again. Chapter 21 of Revelations starts by saying:
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.” And he who sat upon the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the fountain of the water of life without payment. He who conquers shall have this heritage, and I will be his God and he shall be my son”.
