Thomas Griffin 8/8/25
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Do you ever think that your life is not as fulfilling as you would like it to be? Do you ever find yourself searching for more? To be filled with more joy or satisfaction?
Happiness is something that great thinkers have been contemplating for thousands of years. We all seek to be truly happy. Fortunately, there is a secret recipe to finding fulfillment in life. That secret recipe is given to us by God. Consider, if you and I are not the source of our own lives (we didn’t create ourselves), then Someone else did. This life that I live was given to me but I also find myself in an amazing world that I didn’t create either.
If we investigate and find the One who is the source of my creation, then I can discover how I can become satisfied. God is real. In the simplest explanation, we know that God is real because there must be at least one uncaused immaterial being in the world, otherwise nothing else would exist. If all material things (like you and me, and this computer I am using to write this article with) are dependent on other material things for their existence, there must be an immaterial being (whose nature is to exist) that created all things.
The Creator made us for a purpose. We can find our purpose by knowing what it means to be a human person. Human beings have the faculties of reason, freedom and love. These qualities separate us from all other living things. We have a consciousness which knows that it knows things about the world. We have an ability to determine how we desire to act and what we will do with ourselves. Finally, we have the ability to love. We can choose to act for another’s good instead of focusing on ourselves.
Jesus states that this is the key ingredient to human flourishing and finding one’s meaning in life. We find the purpose of life and the pathway for human flourishing in the words of Jesus concerning what it means to be his disciple:
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?” (Matthew 16:24-26).
In ancient times, a disciple would do everything like his master. They were meant to become like their rabbi, not just learn material from them. Jesus’ defining attribute is his self-emptying love. He pours himself out to become an infant-child dependent on his mother and step-father for everything. He accepted rejection from his own people and the Jewish hierarchy. He even accepted death.
Acceptance of our crosses is a prerequisite for following Jesus because we are meant to be formed into Christ, not just perform good actions. The Christian life is meant to be a movement of orienting our hearts to his, not just the following of rules. This is the key to discovering what it means to live one’s faith. We are invited to live in a loving relationship with the God of the universe who is love itself. The tough part is making that come to fruition – becoming like Jesus means that we must accept the first-step of discipleship: acceptance of the call to friendship in grace and a commitment to deny ourselves out of service and love for him and neighbor.
Saying yes to the invitation to be in relationship with Jesus can come in a variety of ways. Maybe you have had an experience of prayer at Sunday Mass or a funeral or even your marriage that seemed transcendent to you. Maybe you had or are currently enduring tremendous suffering. Inside of that trial you have experienced the tremendous love of others and the peace that comes with knowing that you are not alone. Maybe you have recently become a parent and you are finally realizing that the best way to live is to place one’s own desires last, and your loved ones first.
All of these human experiences are ways that God desires to seek us out, call us by name and make us His.
Once we have identified this experience or sequence of events as God’s ways of calling to us – then we are called to grow in our relationship with Jesus through daily prayer and sacrificing for others. Both are ways that we deny ourselves.
Committing to prayer is a denial of what I may want to do with my time (sleep, scroll on social media, binge-watch Netflix, etc.). Playing with our children, visiting our grandparents, serving those in need, or volunteering for an outreach program are ways that deny superficial longings for transcendent ones. We may think that being selfish with our desires and turning in on ourselves will bring joy.
Even secular psychologists point to the fact that selfish living leads to momentary pleasures that are fleeting. This leads the person to be fractured. We are constantly seeking the next pleasure and avoiding all displeasure in order to find that next fleeting moment of “good feeling.” The way of Christ is centered on a selfless heart that is willing to have momentary displeasure if that means we are living in the truth of love.
So, if you seek more from life – if you desire to be more fulfilled, let us listen to the calling of Jesus to deny ourselves. May we become like him, sacrificing our momentary, and often superficial pleasure, for the lasting joy that comes from becoming fully human: moving outside of ourselves and living life to the full.
Thomas Griffin is the chairperson of the religion department at a Catholic high school on Long Island where he lives with his wife and three children. He has a masters degree in theology and is a masters candidate in philosophy. Thomas is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Empty Tomb Project: The Magazine. He is the author of Let Us Begin: Saint Francis’s Way of Becoming Like Christ and Renewing the World.
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