Why?

What is the meaning of life? The author of Ecclesiastes says it has none, absent of one all encompassing duty: "Fear God and obey his commands."

Life can't have meaning unless we know the purpose behind it. Can we know our own life's purpose if we didn't make ourselves? Our purpose seems to me to be to know our designer and His purpose for us. The meaning of life is to, by increasing degrees each day, know God, and to be known by Him as what He fully intends us to be. To be known by Him is to willingly participate in the process He directs to make us fully into what He intends, to be like Him: perfect. 'Be ye perfect': that is our ultimate fulfillment. The hard part is that it won't happen in this life. He won't be done making us into what He wills until after we've died, dying to imperfection seems to be an integral part of the process. The other hard (the hardest) part is that He won't bring us to ultimate fulfillment without our consent. If we will not be refined to perfection by the Master, we will not be refined at all. The canvas cannot paint itself into a masterpiece. A masterpiece necessitates the work of a master, in our case the Master of all men (the Master of all that exists), to bring it to completion.

This post almost assumes that someone was asking a question that I was making an attempt to answer. That was not the case. Thinking back, I now remember that this post was spawned by a thought that came to me after stepping out of the shower. It seemed to me important enough of a thought at the time to make a mental note that I write it down later. I don't know how much of that original thought made it into the post. I do know that I have had the question, "What's the meaning and or the purpose of life?" floating around in my head for a long time. And for a long time I haven't felt that I've been able to answer it. I think when I got out of the shower that day, I felt like I had some form of an answer that was in development. That's the origin of this post...and it was my first attempt at posting my own thoughts, instead of an excerpt or quote of another person.