What is the Meaning of Life?

by David Eckels

Few questions are more fundamental, or more quietly burdensome, than these:

What is the meaning of life?

Why am I here?

What does God actually want from me?

For many sincere Christians, the answer we were taught is often: God wants me to please Him. And pleasing God, we were told, meant denying ourselves, sacrificing our desires, and enduring hardship faithfully.

There is truth in this. Jesus did call His followers to deny themselves. Scripture does speak about obedience, sacrifice, and laying down one’s life. But somewhere along the way, something subtle and devastating happened. Many believers began to associate all desire with selfishness, and all suffering with holiness. Over time, this formed a quiet assumption that enduring perpetual trials and discontentment must be shaping us and, somehow, that pleases God.

And so faith, for many of us, has become a life of endurance rather than purpose and joy, of survival rather than flourishing, of quiet resignation rather than hope.

This article is an invitation to pause and ask, gently and honestly, and without fear, whether that assumption is actually true.

The People Most Vulnerable to Religious Bondage

It is important to say this clearly: the people most likely to become trapped in religious shackles are not rebellious people. They are not people who want to escape God’s will. They are people who desperately want to please God.

No one without a sincere desire to honor God ends up shackled by religious legalism. Religious bondage feeds on devotion. It thrives in people who are conscientious, faithful, self-reflective, and willing to sacrifice. These are often the very people most inclined to endure hardship quietly. They believe their suffering is earning divine approval, storing up heavenly reward, or proving their faithfulness.

This is why deeply religious individuals can become trapped in systems that continually diminish them. They assume that if something hurts, costs them, or makes them unhappy, it must be a tool God is using to bring them closer to holiness.

But this assumption deserves careful examination.

When “Pleasing God” Becomes a Burden

Many believers grow up with an unspoken equation: Pleasing God = denying yourself of what you want.

Again, there is partial truth here. Scripture is clear that sinful desires, desires that harm, exploit, corrupt, or pull us away from our divine purpose, are not meant to be indulged. Lust, greed, deceit, adultery, exploitation, and selfish ambition are rightly called to submission.

But when this principle is applied indiscriminately, it becomes destructive.

When every desire is labeled selfish.

When every longing is treated with suspicion.

When peace, joy, calling, and purpose are quietly sacrificed on the altar of endurance.

At that point, obedience has been confused with self-erasure.

This is where many believers quietly begin to believe that God is most pleased when they are least fulfilled.

Obedience Is Better Than Sacrifice

Scripture offers a corrective to this mindset, and it comes from an unexpected place. When Saul attempts to justify his disobedience with religious sacrifice, the prophet Samuel responds with words that echo through generations:

"....to obey is better than sacrifice...” 1 Samuel 15:22 (KJV)

This verse is often quoted but rarely applied to the way believers treat their own lives. It does not say sacrifice is evil. It says misplaced sacrifice is inferior to obedience.

Obedience is not the same as suffering. Obedience is alignment with God’s will, God’s character, and God’s purposes. Sacrifice, when detached from obedience, becomes a substitute for listening.

Many people sacrifice not because God asked them to, but because they are afraid not to.

Not All Desires Are the Same

One of the most damaging ideas in religious culture is the belief that desire itself is sinful. Scripture does not teach this.

There is a profound difference between desires that arise from sin and desires that arise from divine calling.

Desires for exploitation, indulgence, or harm are not to be pursued. But what about the desire to create? To sing? To teach? To build? To lead? To heal? To love deeply? To live in peace? To grow? To use the unique gifts we have been given?

What about the quiet awareness that a particular environment, job or relationship is pulling you further away from who you were created to be and the purposes you were created for?

These are not inherently selfish desires. Often, they are God-given. How do we discern whether a desire is selfish or from God?

Scripture speaks directly to this:

“Delight thyself also in the Lord; And he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” Psalm 37:4 (KJV)

This verse does not say God merely tolerates your desires. It suggests something far more intimate. As you delight in God, your desires are shaped by Him and placed within you by your Creator.

Why would God plant desires within you, desires aligned with your gifts and calling, only to be pleased when you bury them?

Created in the Image of a Good Father

One of the most practical ways to understand what God wants from us is to consider how Scripture describes God: as a Father.

The Word says that we are created in God’s image.

“So God created man in His own image.” Genesis 1:27 (NIV)

Consider that while human parents are imperfect, the love they have for their children offers a glimpse of God’s heart toward His own children.

What does a loving parent want for their child?

They want to see their child grow.

To thrive.

To discover their gifts.

To fulfill their potential.

To experience joy, meaning, and peace.

To smile, not because life is easy, but because they are bearing fruit.

To further illustrate, what does a loving parent not want for their child?

Not indulgence.

Not entitlement.

Not unchecked material desire.

Earthly parents do not want a life of quiet, sacrificial misery for their children.

“If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven…” Matthew 7:11 (NIV)

If we delight in seeing our children flourish, why do we imagine God delights in watching His children wither?

When Sacrifice Is Mistaken for Faithfulness

This misunderstanding has real consequences.

Many believers remain in circumstances, especially relationships, that steadily erode their capacity to live fully, serve freely, love deeply, and fulfill the purposes they were created for. They stay not because they feel peace, but because they fear displeasing God. They endure not because they sense calling, but because they believe suffering itself is the calling.

Or even worse, they believe they were created to help another human being become better. They believe their role is to help that person become who they think they could be, and that their own suffering and sacrifice is therefore required and holy.

They quietly assume that when they reach heaven, God will reward them for their suffering and sacrifice, and reward them for their devotion to stay in a situation. Let us pause and consider whether our Creator truly rewards us for burying the dreams He placed within us, or whether His heart is instead grieved when those dreams go unpursued.

Scripture does not teach that suffering earns divine credit. Christ came not to invite us into endless resignation, but into life.

“I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” John 10:10 (NKJV)

Abundance does not mean indulgence. It does not mean ease. But it also does not mean chronic emptiness or perpetual sacrifice.

What Christ Actually Came to Give

Jesus did not come to make us smaller.

He did not come to hollow us out.

He did not come to train us to endure joylessness as a virtue.

He came to free us.

Freedom from fear.

Freedom from condemnation.

Freedom from false images of God.

Freedom from the belief that God’s love must be earned through suffering.

This does not mean life will be painless. It means pain is not the point.

Fruit and Purpose

If faith has begun to feel like a cage rather than a calling, you are not broken. If you have confused sacrifice with holiness, you are not alone. If you have wondered whether God really wants you to be this unhappy, you are asking the right question.

Many of us who sincerely love God and desire to please Him have found ourselves living in a constant state of sin avoidance. In our effort to honor our Creator, we unintentionally reduce the Christian life to a daily exercise of managing behavior: what not to do, what to avoid. In doing so, we become sin-focused.

But Scripture reveals that God’s focus is not on sin, as Christ set us free from sin. God's focus is our fruit.

Matthew 7:19–20 (KJV)
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Jesus reinforces this truth through one of His most unsettling demonstrations:

Mark 11:12–14 (NIV)
Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.”

These passages are sobering, but they are also clarifying. They are judgments not against sin and imperfection, but against fruitlessness.

Only having leaves represents the appearance of spirituality without fulfillment of purpose, without fruit.

The fig tree was condemned not because it wasn't growing straight or had other flaws, but because it failed to do the very thing it was created to do.

These Scriptures are both freeing and weighty at the same time. They place responsibility on us, but not an unbearable one. Jesus is clear about the nature of His expectations:

Matthew 11:29–30 (KJV) Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Life is not promised to be stress-free, but it is also not meant to be overbearing. When our burden becomes heavy, exhausting, or joyless, this passage gives us a diagnostic truth: that weight is not coming from the Lord. It is a yoke we have taken upon ourselves, and one not aligned with His design or the fruit He intended us to bear.

God creates specific trees to bear specific fruit.

In the same way, each of us was created with unique characteristics, callings, and capacities to bear specific fruit in the world.

That is not only part of why we are here, it is the reason.