Living without God

Reflection

The experience of living without any sense of God, whether through active unbelief, doubt, or simply drift, is one many people know from the inside. It can bring a certain kind of freedom, an absence of obligation or guilt, but many who have lived that way also describe a persistent undercurrent of restlessness or a nagging sense that something significant is missing, even when life outwardly seems fine. Ecclesiastes, one of the more searching books of the Old Testament, explores exactly this territory, describing a search for meaning through pleasure, achievement, and wisdom that ultimately comes up short without reference to God, concluding that everything is meaningless without him. This is not offered as a scare tactic but as an honest observation many people arrive at through their own experience, long before any religious argument persuades them. Christianity does not claim that life without God is without any goodness or meaning at all, only that it is missing an anchor many eventually find themselves searching for.

Questions to sit with

• Have you ever noticed a restlessness in your life that you could not quite explain?
• What have you found gives your life meaning, whether or not you would call it spiritual?
• How do you personally respond to Ecclesiastes' idea that life without God can feel empty?

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