What do you want?

Life is short.  The bible says repeatedly that it's like a vapor, a mist that is quickly gone.  We are here for just a few years and then.....we are gone.

So,  what do you want?  What do you want to do? What do you want to be remembered for? What do you want to accomplish?  These are questions I'm visiting again as I near the last third.  What do I want?

It's a hard question!  We could easily respond, I want to be happy. I want to be remembered. I want to do something significant with my life, but honestly...maybe too honestly...none of those are in our control.  They are the things we hope happen, but we can't pursue them.  It just doesn't work that way.

My wonderful wife asked me this question earlier this week as we were talking about these things.  "What do you want?"  It has me spinning in my thoughts about what's possible.  I think, if we were honest, most of us would reply, "I DON'T KNOW!"

Our simple answers of wanting happiness, success, significance and other words freely spoken in our culture just don't get to the real heart of the question.  Many philosophers has asked this and tried to answer it from their perspective.  It begins with "Why am I here?", "What's my purpose?" and ends with ultimate destiny, but let's not go there today.  I would rather get to the heart of the question.

What do you want?  At the core we all want meaning. We all want to know our lives are not a waste. We want to matter.  Where does that come from?  If we are simply animals that would never be an issue.  My dog never thinks of these things.  She is happy with a back rub and a walk.  If I ask her, "what do you want" she would cock her head wondering what on earth I'm talking about.

But built into us as humans is a desire for something more than food and comfort.  We want to matter!  That's not an animal instinct.  That comes from our creator.  He made us to ask this question.  He made us to struggle with it and hopefully be discontent with the answers.  

He made us with a desire for more and it's not success, a title, a legacy, a name that's remembered, a lot of money, a nice house or car, it's none of these things....but it is something.

Have you worked through this in your life?  Do you know what you want?  What is it?