I was reading about a New York bus driver who had driven his bus along the same route for years. One day he made a radical decision. He was fed up with running along the same route year after year, stopping at the same stops and so one morning he collected his empty bus and drove out of New York City heading for Florida.
Several days later the police caught up with him and questioned why. His reply was that life had become so meaningless and empty and he wanted to make a protest. When he returned to New York City he received a hero’s welcome since most people in the big city could agree with him.
When life loses it significance, boredom sets in. The bus driver felt he had become a non person, a big zero, and he ended up doing something pretty radical to find even a scrap of purpose in life. Actually his protest was profoundly philosophical and he was not the only one in our world who has let out this cry of pain.
The poet TS Elliot wrote “we are the hollow men” and novelist Ernest Hemingway wrote “there is no remedy for anything in life. Death is a sovereign remedy for all our misfortunes”. With no other hope he sadly ended his own life.
God’s word speaks to this emptiness and God, in his love for us, brings an eternal remedy to both life’s fortunes and misfortunes. But before we can access God’s great answer to the problem, we must accept the bible’s diagnosis for our problem. Romans 3 says all have turned away, there is no one who does good. Our meaningless comes from our waywardness, our boredom comes from our self centeredness and our despair comes from our ruptured relationship with God.
In reality the word of God says our disease is malignant, fatal and incurable… at least from any human point of view. But God who is rich in mercy has offered us a divine solution, new life in Jesus. The forgiveness of our sins past, present and future, the restoration of our relationship and the hope of an eternity with him. This does not ‘limit us’ and ‘restrict our style’ as so many people have been led to believe but rather it liberates us and frees us to live life with purpose, both now and forever.
This is the best news in the world… this is news that would have transformed our bus driver’s perspective and this is news that can transform not just your life but the life of many others. As one Christian writer has said, ‘God has made us for himself and our hearts are restless until they find him’.
Adapted from article by Michael Cassidy