Dictionary .com chose “Existential” as the word of the
year.
While it may be difficult to clearly define the word
existential, it is safe to say that this word, in part, deals with our
existence and the meaning of our lives.
I like this word. It
is philosophical and brings me inward to ponder. If I am being existential I am considering
the big questions of life. Who am I? Where do I belong? What is the meaning of
my life? If I am fly fishing in a river, pondering where I belong among the
fish and currents, I am being existential.
Most importantly (at least for me), if we look back to the
founding father of existentialism, we find a melancholy man, Soren Kierkegaard
who claimed to be a Christian. As he
pondered the meaning for his own life he was deeply convicted that God was an
important part of the equation. Kierkegaard believed that the individual is
responsible for his choices. And that included choosing God.
What is strange to me, in our present age, is that in many
of our evangelical churches, if one brings up anything that has a whiff of
existentialism in it, he will likely draw some strange looks. Our evangelical
churches should be the places we can go, to ask/share the difficult, painful,
inward questions; bring them to the surface with our existential pain and angst,
but often they are not.
We should be able to ask, “Where are you God? Are you here?” without offending anyone.
We should be able to ask “God can I expect or at least hope
that you might intervene in my life in some manner?”
If God really exists and that if that hope is a possibility,
then how could I not be wrestling with infinite possibility? That wrestling then becomes a part of my
existence and part of my existential human condition.
