Young people are precious. Having just begun their journey in life, they are full of youthful vigor and have a promising future. That is why everyone likes young people. Nevertheless, may the Lord have mercy on us that the young people can see what is truly a blessed human life.
Concerning a blessed human life, the emphasis is not just on being blessed; rather, the emphasis is on human life. Human life is our subject. What is human life? We all know that the phrase human life is composed of human and life. What is human? It is a mystery. As for life, its meaning is somewhat obscure. Does it refer to the intrinsic life or to the outward living? It seems to refer to both aspects and to also include both. Actually, this life is neither the intrinsic life nor the outward living; it lies between life and living and refers to human existence. Human life refers to the existence of man, and the existence of man is what man is. What we are is our real human life. In other words, our human life shows the secret of our being human.
A person begins to exist as soon as he is born. During the first two to three years, he knows only to eat, drink, and play; he does not understand anything else. As he grows up little by little, on the one hand, his taste for pleasure increases, but on the other hand, his gratification from pleasure decreases gradually. Today, especially in Taiwan, starting from kindergarten the human life seems to be a suffering life instead of a blessed life. The reason for this is that from the time of kindergarten, demands from teachers, expectations from parents, and the pressures of schoolwork all come one after another.
We who have children are well aware of this matter. After a child goes to kindergarten, teachers do everything they can to coax him to study diligently. After he passes through elementary school, he enters junior high, and in order to get a good education not only does the child suffer hardships in the school, but the parents also go to much trouble with the view that he would pass his examinations and enter into the best high school. The parents toil day and night and even provide him with the best tutor. Therefore, not only is the school strict in supervision, but the tutor also is not at all lax, and even the parents keep a close watch. At last he passes the test, but he is still not satisfied, for his scores may not be high enough to get him admitted to a first rate school; rather, he may be admitted to a second rate school. After entering into high school, he suffers even more because college is still ahead. After he enters college, there are still a few more years of suffering.
Just before graduating from college, or maybe even earlier, some may have heard the gospel, believed in Jesus, and received salvation, acquiring a priceless blessing. However, they may not understand why they believed. The reason they believed is that now they have a stronger will and a broader view, and as to human life and man’s existence they have a deeper understanding. In other words, it is at this point in life that they begin to sense the need of a human being and the need of human life. Therefore, under the Lord’s sovereignty and arrangement, they heard the gospel and received the Lord.
I believed in Jesus when I was nineteen years old. At that time I was still studying in a junior college. To tell you the truth, I had had my fill of fun and pleasure. My mother was a third generation Christian, so I was born and grew up in Christianity, and the school I attended was a Christian school. After I gradually became more mature, I constantly felt that I should make a stand for the Lord, since the Christian religion in China at that time was commonly referred to as a “foreign religion” in a derogatory way. Nevertheless, even at nineteen years of age, I had not yet received Christ. That was when my human life had come to the point where I was empty within and without. Even though I knew some principles of dealing with things and understood a little about human life, I was empty inside.
One afternoon, a young lady from the Kiangsu-Chekiang area of the South came into our city to preach the gospel. I grew up listening to sermons given by old pastors and old preachers, so I was weary of listening to them. Now there was a preacher who was not only a young person, but also a female, coming to our city to preach the gospel. Naturally I was driven by curiosity to go listen to her. That afternoon I went and heard her preaching. Right away, there was a response within me, and my heart felt that this was what I wanted. At that moment, I believed in the Lord. I remember that after the meeting that day, on my way back home, I stopped and looked up to the heavens and said, “O God, even if you give me the entire world today, I will not accept it. I only want You.” It was not a so-called supplication but an aspiration. That year I had just entered junior college.
Apparently, we just hear the gospel and believe in Jesus, but actually it is not that simple; it is very deep. It is deep in the sense that it concerns our very being. Our existence comes to a point, a critical moment, when our state of mind is prepared to receive something; so when the gospel comes, we receive Jesus. This shows that our human existence is certainly for a purpose. Everything in the universe is for our existence. If all the beasts, birds, and cattle were taken away, human life would lose its color. All the lovely animals are part of our human life and they are for our existence. Therefore, we must consider what human life is exactly, what the meaning of human life is, and what the purpose of man’s existence is.
If we were to stand in front of the mirror and look at ourselves—at our eyes, nose, and ears—we would find them fascinating. It is truly the wonderful design of the Creator that we human beings are such. No wonder someone once praised in admiration, saying, “Throughout history and over the whole earth, there is not one great designer who can improve the human appearance.” Today the things in the world are wide in variety, diverse in style, and always being modified. Some are modified to improve their function; some are modified for fashion, to follow the tide of the age. Only we human beings cannot be improved either in appearance or in function. For example, if the eyebrows above our eyes were modified to line up vertically, they would be not only ugly but also impractical. In Taiwan, nine out of ten people wear glasses. If the nose God created for man was wide on the top and narrow on the bottom, not only would it not hold a pair of glasses, but it would also be ugly. If our nostrils were pointed upward, then all the dust and rain would fall into them. These illustrate that the creation of man is truly a wonder.
To illustrate further, the hairs on our body all grow downward, and only the hairs in the trachea grow upward. In this way the phlegm in the throat can be kept from flowing downward. A brother who is a medical doctor told me that the earwax in our ears is very useful medically; it instantly kills intruding bacteria, preventing them from doing any harm to us. Based on these things, we can conclude that human beings did not come through evolution as Darwin said. They were created by the sovereign Lord of the universe. Before creation there had to be a design; we were created according to the design of the wisdom of God. God’s design is mysterious yet exquisite and cannot be further improved. We little human beings express God’s great design to the uttermost.