Why am I Here?

That's probably the most fundamental question a person could ask, isn't it? Indeed, why am I here? A few years ago, Rick Warren sold a boatload of books to Christians and non-Christian alike by trying to answer a closely related question, "What is my purpose?"

If you do not believe in a creator, the answer to "Why am I here?" can be nothing more than, "I don't know, it was really an accident. Some cosmic thing just happened a billion-trillion years ago, and over all of history, matter has been evolving into what it is today. I just happen to be the accidental product of science and time."

But if you believe in the Creator, the One who claims in Genesis chapter 1 to have made it all, then the question becomes more complex. Why did God create anything at all, let alone mankind?

I ask the question in light of the Arminian/Reformed theology struggle.

One thing we do know from Genesis 1:31, is that what God did create, He approved of.

"God saw all that he had made, and it was very good."

The phrase "very good" comes from the Hebrew "me'od towb." "Me'od" is a superlative word that could be translated as "exceedingly," or “especially." "Towb" is translated as "pleasant," "pleasurable," "precious," among other words.

So God created everything, last of which was mankind, and said that it was "exceedingly pleasant," or something to that effect. That doesn't answer the question of, "Why am I here?", but it does summarize what God thought of what he created.

I'm not sure the Bible comes right out and tells us why we're here -- God doesn't seem to plainly say, "I made you because ..." So, I admit my answer may just be speculation, but here it is: do we exist simply to please God? If He describes His creation as "pleasurable," it would be an explanation for why He created.

Many examples in the Bible seem to support the conclusion that pleasing God is certainly part of our DNA. Here are a few:

• In Exodus 33 Moses is asking God for validation and evidence that God is pleased with him. "If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you," says Moses. In response, God says to Moses, "I am pleased with you and I know you by name."
• In Deuteronomy 28, Moses is reminding Israel the importance of obeying God's commands. After recalling the punishment God sent to Egypt, Moses says, "Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess." (The "land" referring to the promised land of Canaan.) This is interesting to me, as it suggests that God could take pleasure in both blessing His people, and destroying His people.
• In 1 Kings 3, God tells Solomon in a dream, "Ask for whatever you want me to give you." The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. So God said to him, "Since you have asked for this … I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be.”
• In Psalms 40 and 41, David asks that God be pleased with him, and then, “I know that you are pleased with me, for my enemy does not triumph over me.”
• Upon being baptized by John, God declares to Jesus and the witnesses, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
• Later in Matthew’s gospel, God again speaks in the presence of witnesses and says “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!"
• In 1 Corinthians, Paul references Israel’s 40 years of wandering because they disobeyed God’s order to enter Canaan. Paul says, “Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert. Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did.”
• In Hebrews’ “Bible Hall of Fame,” the writer says “By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.”

If my sole purpose for existence is to please God, then the next question to answer might be, “What pleases God?” That’s another topic for another day. But I think as I ponder salvation and the respective roles that God and I play (or don’t play) in that, it’s important to consider that what pleases God is not necessarily what pleases me. In other words, what God defines as pleasing, or fair, or righteous, or holy, may be different from my sense of those things. Let’s discuss …