Live a Life That Matters: Awakening to the Power of Purpose—Kindness—Forgiveness—Friendship

By Jean Maalouf

What are you living for?

OK! Youve got the house and the car of your dreams, youve got the latest electronic devices you were obsessed with, youve made all the trips of your reverie and imagination, and youve achieved what you always wanted to achieve. But somehow something was and still is missing. Where are the promises of the happy-ever-after relationships, the fun of the rich and famous, and the security of the good life these things were supposed to deliver?

What is the meaning of it all? Now what?

Sooner or later, we will come to the conclusion that these things, even if they are nice to have, are not what matter most in life, not by a long shot. Otherwise, why are we never satisfied and continue to want more? Why do we play the happy persons when we really are not? And after all our accumulated successes, how in the world are we still missing what matters mostour true-self realization and the fulfillment of our fundamental goal?

In a unique styleboth profound and simplephilosopher Maalouf points to the very core of what matters most. His long years of studies (two doctorates) and writing experience (more than forty published books) led him to firmly suggest in this book that life is not only the total sum of the most comfortable income, possessions, position, prestige, and passion for every convenience. Life is essentially, and especially, a continuous search for a deeper meaning that can be found in that everlasting hunger of our restless minds and hearts and in our most fundamental purpose and particular life mission. We dont only exist; we live a full life that is lived in the spirit of Saint Irenaeuss famous line The glory of God is a human being who is fully alive. Otherwise, no true fulfillment is possible.

Fully alive, explains Dr. Maalouf, requires us to live a meaningful life not by aggrandizing the ego but by emptying it. It takes what matters most to let go of the superficial mirages of the false self. It takes the awakening of the holy hunger and divine longing to decipher the meaning of life that constitutes the true self. In the end, what really counts is not to live according to the creatures distractions but according to the Creators statutes not to become what our culture prescribes but to incarnate what our fundamental purpose and mission inspire and not what makes a living but what makes a life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984529992

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 by Jean Maalouf.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2018906144

ISBN:      Hardcover         978-1-9845-3001-1

                Softcover          978-1-9845-3000-4

                eBook              978-1-9845-2999-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, translated, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

Unless otherwise indicated, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible, copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches in the U.S.A., and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Contents

Prologue

PURPOSE

Introduction

Chapter 1 Everyone Must Have a Purpose in Life

Chapter 2 How to Find Your Purpose

Chapter 3 Fundamental Purpose

Conclusion

KINDNESS

Introduction

Chapter 4 Kind Thoughts

Chapter 5 Kind Words

Chapter 6 Kind Deeds

Conclusion

FORGIVENESS

Introduction

Chapter 7 Does Forgiveness Make Sense?

Chapter 8 Seventy Times Seven Times

Chapter 9 Forgiveness Is Good for Us

Conclusion

FRIENDSHIP

Introduction

Chapter 10 How Do You Define a Friend?

Chapter 11 The Sacrament of Friendship

Chapter 12 Friends Are the Best Medicine

Conclusion

Afterword

Epilogue: Radical Transformation

About the Author

Also by Dr. Jean Maalouf

To

Those who believe and those who do not yet believe

that God so loved the world (John 3:16),

that the universe is full of God,

that the love of God includes the love of God’s world,

that the love of God is reached through the love of God’s world,

that the true love of God’s world—neighbor— is like the love of God (see Matthew 22:37-39),

that God can be seen, tasted, heard, smelled, felt, touched everywhere at anytime,

that the present moment is the junction point with the eternal,

that seeing all things in God is also seeing God in all things.

I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

—Jeremiah 29:11

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

— Matthew 6:21

When God chooses you to deliver a message, to have a purpose, no one and nothing can reverse the course of His plan.

— Carlos Wallace

Never forget who you are, never forget where you came from and why you are here on this beautiful planet.

— Euginia Herlihy

Each life involves an essential errand; not simply the task of survival, but a life-mission embedded in the soul from the beginning.

— Michael Meade

The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. … The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.

— Seneca

The purpose of life is a life of purpose.

— Robert Byrne

Purpose of life is to generate more love, peace and harmony in the world.

— Amit Ray

There is a greater purpose to living which is found in the spirit, which is the Being, and that purpose is worth living for.

— Belsebuub

Pleasant words are like a honey-comb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.

— Proverbs 16:24

No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

— 1 Jn 4:12

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

— Aesop

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.

— Albert Schweitzer

"You can accomplish by kindness what you cannot by force."

— Publilius Syrus

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.

— Lao Tzu

Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.

— Seneca

"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

— Dalai Lama

Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless.

— Mother Teresa

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.

— Blaise Pascal

Kindness gives birth to kindness.

— Sophocles

A good deed is never lost. He who sows courtesy, reaps friendship; he who plants kindness, gathers love; pleasure bestowed on a grateful mind was never sterile, but generally gratitude begets reward.

— Saint Basil

Then Peter came up and asked him, ‘Lord, when my brother wrongs me, how often must I forgive him? Seven times?’ ‘No,’ Jesus replied, ‘not seven times; I say, seventy times seven times.’

— Matthew 18:21‒22 (nab)

Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

— Colossians 3:13

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

— Matthew 6:14–15

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

— Mahatma Gandhi

The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.

— Benjamin Franklin

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

— Alexander Pope

We don’t forgive people because they deserve it. We forgive them because they need it—because we need it.

— Bree Despain

Let us forgive each other – only then will we live in peace.

— Leo Tolstoy

Man has two great spiritual needs. One is for forgiveness. The other is for goodness.

— Billy Graham

Without forgiveness, there’s no future.

— Desmond Tutu

The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.

— John Green

Faithful friends are beyond price; no amount can balance their worth.

— Sirach 6:15

I do not call you servants any longer…I have called you friends.

— John 15:15

There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.

— Thomas Aquinas

The language of friendship is not words but meanings.

— Henry David Thoreau

Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.

— Woodrow T. Wilson

I don’t need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.

— Plutarch

A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.

— Elbert Hubbard

My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.

— Henry Ford

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.

— C.S. Lewis

Never leave a friend behind. Friends are all we have to get us through this life–and they are the only things from this world that we could hope to see in the next.

— Dean Koontz

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

Prologue

OK! You’ve got the house and the car of your dreams. You’ve also got digital TV and the latest devices of communication. Also, you may have enjoyed diamond bracelets, frequent parties, and extravagant trips to the most famous capitals of the world. Moreover, you may have had the most exotic vacations very few people have ever had before. Good for you. What a blessing!

Then what? What’s next?

Sooner or later, you will come to the conclusion, if you are not there yet, that these things, even if they are nice to have had, are not what matters most in life. Not by a long shot. Otherwise, why are you never satisfied and you continue to want more? Why are all these famous people, who seem to have all that one can imagine, becoming frustrated and depressed to the point where many of them committed suicide or at least such a possibility was seriously under consideration?

When one does not discover what matters most in life, it would not be a surprise if one feels an empty space in the very core of his or her being. Then one runs after superficial things thinking that these secondary things will help fill that space. But these things, as history shows, have never been able to fill that space and there is no reason to believe that they are able to do so now. What they do is to shower promises but not to deliver what they promise.

Our troubles come when we seek first all the things that are other than God. It is a fact that many have been destroyed by the very things they have been seeking with devotion their entire lives. If we start to worship things—even spiritual things—as if they were God, we make of them idols. The truth is that it is better to be right with God and wrong with the world than to be wrong with God and right with the world. We are called to the good life—and the good life is the meaningful life. And every time we lose the meaning of our life, we lose unmistakably the good life even in the midst of all the privileges we might be enjoying. Ask all the stars of the medias and all successful people in any field, and they will tell you that their happiness is not found in their successes but in the meaning of their lives.

If we want to admit it or not, it is God who gives us the meaning for our lives by assigning a special mission in the co-creation for every one of us.

When God is God for us — only for the sake of God rather than for any other good God can give us — then we have it all; Christ is all and in all (Col 3:11). Then, no scarcity is possible. Then, [We] can do all things through him who strengthens [us] (Phil 4:13), because It is no longer [we] who live, but it is Christ who lives in [us] (Gal 2:20). Then, God will use us instead of us using him.

When we seek God, what are we really seeking? Are we seeking God or rather some favors from God? If we look for help to heal, to find a job, to have financial security or to meet any other need through God, we are not really looking for God. Until we have God—the only one needed thing—we have nothing. When we have God, we have all there is in the world—abundant life. Jesus said: Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Mt 6:33). To know about God is less important than to know God—existentially.

Therefore, neither an over-spiritualization nor an over-materialization will work for the betterment of the human condition. We become perfectly human when we are balanced and divinized by Christ who took our flesh to make us like God and infuse his divine life in our lives. Then, as the true contemplatives did, we will understand that detachment means that we love everything in God, and not that we love nothing but God. We will then love creatures more and more rather than less and less; we will love them in God, and not apart from God. We will love the world and make it a better place to live because it is the divine milieu.

How is it possible not to make a better world if we see Jesus incarnated again and again in every human being we meet? On many occasions, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, for example, repeated what Jesus said, Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me (Mt 25:40). That was her basic philosophy of life. She was truly fascinated by Christ in disguise. She saw Christ in every person she served. Jesus was here and now. He was in each needy, suffering person. He was in every person. He was in a continuous incarnation.

Regardless of what our eyes see—no matter how mundane, superficial, shallow, absurd, and even sinful—at the bottom of it all, we discover God in action. The pure in heart sees God’s love. It is upon God’s love in Jesus and the Holy Spirit that the whole of our universe and lives is constructed. This requires us to begin where we are—to learn to see. Ordinary awareness does not have the ability to see the one needed thing (see Lk 10:42). Only when the heart is in the mind or the mind is in the heart to a point where a true spiritual awareness emerges, that we can see and live the gospel truth without the hypocrisy of a double life. This is what an earthy contemplative is able to live. He or she is thrilled by the epiphany of the ordinary, and by his or her participation in God’s kingdom.

The kingdom of God is among you (Lk 17:21), and also is coming; Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10), we daily pray. Jesus did not lay out a blueprint of the kingdom of God, but he strikingly used metaphors of growth when speaking about it; The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how (Mk 4:26-27); The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leaven (Mt 13:33); With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade (Mk 4:30-31).

Consequently, the enfleshment of the Word of God must be perpetual, progressive, and universal. The Church—the body of Christ—has the mission to continue this enfleshment into the farthest reaches of the world and until the end of time. And this is what an earthy contemplative does all day long.

The Jesus of the Incarnation was concrete, unique, fully divine and fully human. He came to allow us to have life, and have it abundantly (Jn 10:10). An earthy contemplative may not have a mansion, but he or she has life, and has it abundantly. Here, what Albert Einstein said seems very appropriate. He said: Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. So, First things first, as it was said many times. And this is what this book does.

Live a Life That Matters: Awakening to the Power of Purpose-Kindness-Forgiveness-Friendship points the way to reorder our priorities that Jesus summarized in what he said when he was at Martha and Mary’s house. He said: Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need for only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her (Lk 10:41-42).

If you have declared or undeclared questions such as: Is this all there is? What is my life really about? Why am I here? What difference does it make if I exist or not? What is my special mission? What am I really seeking? What is the real meaning of my life? then this book is for you. Please read it slowly and meditatively—maybe one chapter at a time. It is a prescription for a happy, healthy, and meaningful life – a life worth living because you want to make a life rather than just a living.

PURPOSE

I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

—Jeremiah 29:11

Introduction

What makes our hearts sing? What is that thing that rings a bell in our minds? What makes us smile, count our blessings, and keep going on with our lives?

What makes the things we do every day meaningful? What makes us realize that our lives are fulfilled? Why do we persevere at certain tasks despite many challenges, and yet feel no attraction or zest for other tasks that seem easier?

The answer to these questions may be linked to the choices we make in life. Our lives become meaningful and fulfilling when we respond to a calling instead of the demands of a career, follow a purpose instead of just the requirements of a job, and make a life instead of just making a living.

How privileged are those among us who are able to hear their heart’s calling and fulfill what they were meant to do in this life!

When we meet someone for the first time, we have a tendency to introduce ourselves by telling the other person what we do for a living. Am I my job? Are you your job? Of course not. We are much more than what we do. In fact, the opposite seems more accurate: we should do what we are.

Mother Teresa would describe the work of her sisters this way: The Missionaries of Charity are not social activists but contemplative in the very heart of today’s world. Helping people acquire what they need is the job of a social worker. Helping people be what they really are as children of God is a vocation, a calling, a purpose—a powerful healing purpose. It gives meaning to the lives of both the receiver and the giver. Doing good for others is good for you.

There is a passion waiting for you, but you may need to do some homework to find it.

What do you intend to do with your life? Think about it. If you spend, let’s say, thirty or forty years being a politician, a lawyer, a teacher, a salesperson, or a machine operator, what will you have accomplished? Does what you do respond to your most profound longing? When you get where you are going, will you be satisfied?

Is being a lawyer God’s plan for you? Do you feel that, by being a salesperson with all the money you’ve made in the bank, you lived really abundantly and truly in the sense of what Jesus said, I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly (Jn 10:10)?

Every one of us has a life purpose that is in God’s plan. Jobs may come and go, but one never retires from God’s plan. It is this very sense of purpose in God’s plan that makes everyone unique. If people fail in life, it