Can Your Life Have Greater Meaning?

Conclusion of Satisfying Our Spiritual Need

Why does obedience to God satisfy us?  Because we have a conscience, a gift that God has bestowed on all mankind.  The conscience is a moral examiner that registers approval or disapproval of what we have done or consider doing.  We have all experience the distress of a troubled conscience.  (Romans 2:15) But our conscience can also reward us.  When we act unselfishly toward God and fellow humans, we feel contented and satisfied.  We find that "there is more happiness in giving than there is in receiving."  (Acts 20:35)  There is an important reason for this.

Our Creator made us in such a way that the desires and needs of fellow humans affect us. Helping others produces pleasure in our own hearts.  Additionally, the Bible assures us that when we give to someone in need, God considers this a favor done to him. -Proverbs 19:17.

Apart from giving inner satisfaction, can attention to our spiritual needs  help us in a practical way?  Well, a  Middle Eastern businessman named Raymond believes that it can.  "My goal, pure and simple, was to make  money," he says.  "But from the time I accepted in my heart that there is a God and that the Bible expresses his wishes, I was a different man.  Making a living now takes a second place in my life.  By trying to please God, I have been spared the destructive feeling of hatred.  Though my father died during a conflict, I have no wish to take revenge  on those responsible."

As Raymond discovered, caring well for the needs of "the spiritual man"  can heal deep emotional wounds.  However,  unless we cop with  the  problems that each day brings, life will not be entirely satisfying.

Next time: We Can Have "the Peace of God"

Watchtower, 2000