“What do I want?”

That question has given me a surprising amount of sleepless nights. For a simple question, it’s rarely an easy one to answer. There are some obvious prompts: I want love, fulfilment, hope, joy, peace; I want money, relationships, freedom, stability; I want people to like me, I want to be important, or useful, in the sense that I want to meaningfully contribute to the world…

And, yet, living that practically can be pretty hard, hey? I’ve gotten a couple of things mostly right: turns out I want prayer, and a good night’s sleep; I want coffee every couple of days, because more than that makes me need it; I want to see my friends most weeks and my family every couple of months; I want to be good at my job and I want to love people well.

I want to be content with the state of my life. That, essentially, is the definition of happiness: that the elements which make up our lives work together well enough to produce stability and fulfilment: an integrated life, if you will, or a life in unity. In the same way as a sporting team, or any organisation, needs to be united in order to achieve a common goal, so the different parts of our life must be in sync if we are to thrive in our own setting.

Now, you might ask: isn’t Jesus the only thing we need to be happy?

I would answer, yes, He is, and He’s the only One who actually fulfils us entirely. But that’s the wrong question. He’s got plenty of ways to fulfil us.

Remember that everything we have, and have ever had, is a gift none of us crafted for ourselves. We came into existence through the creativity of the Creator. We exist even now drawing our life from the source of all life. We can play games, and write essays, and kick goals, and paint pictures, and play music and watch sunsets and love each other ONLY because He gave us all of the tools to do that. We draw our life from Him, and it would be foolish to think that we did this by ourselves, and even more so to find pride in it: C.S. Lewis says that we may as well be proud of the colour of our hair! No, creation is a glorious, wild gift that goes well beyond our capacity to receive it.

But that’s exactly what the Father wants from us: to receive the gifts He’s given us, and to experience the collaborative nature of a relationship with Him: collaborative, because in our surrender, it transforms every part of our lives for our good and for His glory. Living a full and free life necessarily involves engaging with the gifts we’ve been given: to eat, drink, and work; to write, or dance, or sing, or laugh; to love, to work together, to praise… all of which belong in their proper place and context. Living like this directly flows from God. It is living in the freedom which He gave. He wants that. The Father deeply desires us to experience the fullness of life. He longs for our good, yearning to redeem the parts of us which hold us back from living in that freedom. And it’s in relationship with grace that we can make real, substantive changes to the elements of our lives, in order that we may be more free.

It's well worth mentioning that Christ, the fulfilment of what it is to be human, actively pursued a balanced life. He ate, drank, and slept. He spent all day curing the sick and went to be alone of an evening. To do that, he went away, sometimes far away, to be by Himself (or to pray to His Father). He worked as a carpenter, and He worked in ministry. He healed and He preached, yes, but also withdrew in private to be with His disciples, His close friends.

He was tested. He stepped well beyond what was comfortable, in its proper time, going willingly to the Cross. And, in laying down His life, He experienced resurrection.

I’ll make no claims that it’s easy, and just so you know, nobody’s got everything sorted out. There always involves a process of give and take, when it comes to taking responsibility for your own life: you can give all you can, but there needs to be a process of letting go as well. Imagine you want to pull your little brother out of the pool he’s currently struggling to get out of. You might want to grab him and yank him out, but chances are pretty good you’ll hurt him if you hold on too tight. So, too, we can suffocate our lives if we make ourselves our god. We are not Him. There needs to be a loosening of our hands – not throwing them to the wind, but allowing them to be guided by God. Nobody gets the balance right like He does.

Now, as I mentioned, the elements of our lives. I personally like to use the Maslow hierarchy of needs as a mildly flawed but useful tool for reflection. He theorises that, in order to achieve higher needs, like creative projects or fulfilling work, you need to have more basic needs met. See below:

Now, exceptions exist. It’s not as though you need to be full to the brim of food and water before you can kick a few goals on a Saturday morning. Like, you won’t be a quivering mess in the exam if you haven’t brought your waterbottle. But have you ever tried being kind to someone when you’re hungry? Or when you’ve pulled an all-nighter? Or when you’ve run to the end of the social battery and you just want to sleep? It’s hard! This is why it’s very much worth it – maybe even essential – to reflect on the extent to which our needs are being met.

None of the elements of our lives exist in isolation. In the same way as a computer randomly blue-screens, right when you’re in the middle of an assignment due the next day, if something is off in our lives, it often threatens to derail whatever else is happening in us.

To simplify, I will give elements which are essential to the thriving of the human person, and I hope these might be useful for anyone at all to think through, whether you’re a parent, a child, a teenager, or a broke uni student:

1. Health

Diet, sleep, exercise: am I eating, sleeping, exercising as my body actually needs, or only to the extent it isn’t uncomfortable? Perhaps a better question: do I want to be fitter, sleep better, more physically capable? And a follow-up: what can I do to make that happen?

Do I take care of myself in the same way I’d take care of a friend? Do I see myself the way God sees me – with love, compassion, and a determination to heal and to set free?

2. Love

Do I have close friends I can trust to accept me? Do I have someone I can ask questions when I want to grow? How are my relationships with my family members, and what can I do to improve them? Have I forgiven people who’ve wronged me, or asked forgiveness for my failings?

1. Expression

What do I value – faith, kindness, love, joy, hope, excitement, passion; family, friends, relationships; creativity, productivity, money, freedom; prayer, nature, sport, sunsets, music, quality time…? How effectively do I divide my time? To what extent do I live according to my values?

Do I do things I enjoy? Do I do things I find productive? If I were to be in any career, or getting any grade that I wanted, what would it be? – and now, what would it take for that to happen, and am I willing to follow that path?

What impact do I have on those around me? Is it positive, or negative?

What’s one thing I do, that I would like to change? – now, using one or two practical steps, how can I change it?

These aren’t questions you have to have answers to. It’s completely fine to answer honestly: I don’t know. Then maybe you’ll find those questions only have one destination.

What I’ve found in my prayer recently is that I’ve been asking God: what do you want? And He keeps answering me: what do you want? I’ve found that a sometimes terrifying question, out of a fear I pick the wrong things, or that I won’t be able to handle it. It’s been a lot easier to run from that fear into the waiting arms of Netflix, or online chess, or a thousand coffee catchups.

But what I learned was to bring my questions to Him, not throw them away assuming He doesn’t want to get involved. What I’ve found is… answers, over time, and in His voice.

Maybe, He desires to draw out from us the deeper parts of our heart. Maybe, He wants us to find the freedom to authentically live out who we are, when all the messy motives are cut away from us. Maybe, following God’s plan ends with us discovering what we wanted all along – locked away in our hearts, where only He could find it.

Nobody knows us better than God. If we want to find out what a fulfilling life looks like, there is no better place than at the feet of Christ, listening to every word He says. He has a quiet voice, sometimes, it’s true; but in that space, He draws us deeper, into the unknown, where He finds us, and loves us into our new freedom. He invites courage from us, so that we can use it. He invites a response from us, so that we get to choose to be a part of something beautiful. Remember that He runs to meet the Prodigal Son at the gate, and equips him with the ring and robe, signifying restoration of his sonship. Remember that the sparrows and the lilies give God nothing, and He provides all they need. How much more will He give to you, child of God, whom He loves so dearly?

Learning to be Human

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