The Primary Fact of Life by Bryan Norford

One revelation, the most obvious and natural fact of earthly life, has taken me a lifetime to discover. Unfortunately, my fallen nature can be as impenetrable as the ocean depths to an enlightening Spirit.

The most formative question about life is about God: is He or isn’t He? If He is and created us, then we will give account for how we have lived. Conscience—which we can manipulate or stifle—and His Word—which we may ignore or trash—warn us of our obligation to Him.

Without God, no rules, justice, order or love exist. It leaves a void for personal opinion and ambition. This fractures humankind and leads to the human chaos that history records and we observe. The sense that humans can and will overcome their fallen nature Is the principal lie of earth’s existence.

If my mind is dark, how much darker is the mind that conceives of humanity rising from its moral anarchy by its own efforts. William Ernest Henley’s words ending Invictus, “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul,” meant to portray the ascendancy of the human spirit, also condemn us.

Those words, sung by a few with ability to overcome obstacles—at least for a time—are daily mourned by billions who find no hope from oppression, poverty, and disease. The human spirit can endure so much, but cannot cope alone with adversity.

Augustine penned the obvious answer “Thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.” Pascal confirmed: “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person, and it can never be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God, made known through Jesus Christ.”

So here is the basic idea about life that has recently become meaningful to me:

The most natural and imperative way of life is to walk through it with our Creator.

Anything less is the world’s greatest folly.