WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE?
Program 176
God Wants Us As Friends
by Ernest O’Neill

We’re talking about how our personalities are meant to operate day by day. We’re doing that in connection with
a study we started eight or nine months ago called “What is the meaning of life?” We have asked ourselves what
the meaning of life is and why we are here. We’ve reached the place in our discussion where we are satisfied
that we were indeed made by a personal Being who designed us in the way we find we are formed.

He did it because He wants us to be His friends, and that is because He is as personable as we are. He made us
so that we would actually be His friends, and so that we would love Him and He would love us. That’s actually
why you are in existence. The Maker of the universe planned you carefully to be a friend to Him that no one
else can be. It’s amazing to think of it, but it’s true. He has even counted the hairs on your head and He
knows your name.

He is planning to live with you forever if you will use your own free will during this lifetime to do what He
has given you to do here on the earth. He has a certain job that you alone can do for Him. He has a certain
friendship that you can take part in that only you can fulfill. So, you really are unique; there has never
been anybody like you in the universe and there never will be. It is important to get hold of that, because
that ties up with the way our personalities operate.

What we have been saying is that our personalities operate on three different levels. They operate on a
physical level which is our bodies. Then they operate on the level of our souls, or our psychological part:
our mind, emotions, and our wills. Then they operate on the level of the spirit, which is the real you. The
spirit is the part of us that most of us have lost, because we usually live somewhere between our body and our
soul.

For example, we look at the stock market and our eyes send a signal to our emotions in our soul, which in turn
sends a signal to our mind that we should be elated or depressed. The mind then sends that signal to the body
and we either smile or frown at the wife and children. Now usually we operate that way because the opposite
happens if we find that we have an overdraft in the bank.

Our eyes send a signal of alarm to the emotions, and the emotions panic, becoming anxious and worried. The
emotions send a signal to the mind telling it to grab what it can. So the mind directs the body to grumble at
people and be as nasty as it can be. So most of us live in a little circle between our body and our soul so
that our will is virtually eliminated from the operation and our spirit is completely dead.

It is because our spirit is dead that we feel such insecurity. We feel insecure, because the real security in
our lives begins when we sense that the Creator of the world put us here for a purpose. He will see to it that
you have enough food to keep you alive, and He has given you blood and kept it flowing around your body
through miles and miles of veins.

He has put you here not to starve or to be destroyed, because that is pointless and without purpose.
Everything He has done has a purpose to it apart from the wild things that we human beings have introduced
into the world by our own free will. The things that the Creator creates have purpose and design. So it is
reasonable to believe that He will keep His promise to you, and His promise is very clear. He said it through
His son Jesus.

He said it! He told us not to be anxious about what we will eat or drink or what we will wear, because the
body is more than just food and clothing. He told us to look at the flowers of the field and see how they
never toil or gather into barns, and yet not Solomon in all his glory was dressed like the flowers.

He reminded us that if the flowers, which today are and tomorrow are not, are cast into a fire and burned,
will He not much more clothe us. So His son has assured us that God has not put us here to kill us. He has put
us here to do a job while on the earth and to become like Him. He will provide what we need to do that. He
will provide the money and clothing as long as we continue to do what He wants us to do.

Of course, you’ve found that, haven’t you? I mean, you’ve come through a lot of hard times, but you’re still
alive. You’ve known times when you didn’t think you would survive and if you would manage, but you have.
Somehow, the books have balanced and you’re still in action and still fairly solvent. The truth is that the
Creator will take care of you and look after you.

Of course, as you begin to live from your spirit inside outward, then through communion with Him you begin to
sense what He wants you to do in this life. As you live from your spirit, you begin to relax and realize that
the Creator has everything organized and the cattle on a thousand hills are His. He is watching over
everything and so He certainly has the ability to look after each of us.

So, you begin to relax and say to God, “What do you want me to do?” He then begins to feed through your spirit
and your intuition a sense of what you ought to do with your life and what you are fitted to do. You sense
what part of the world you are able to bring into order under His will that no one else can.

Your intuition then grasps that and your conscience constrains your will in the light of that to live up to
that. Your will then directs your mind to a certain job, or to learn how to do certain skills. Your emotions
are fed by your mind, and then you begin to express all that through your body. You then begin to fill the
world with the order that God is bringing through your life.

So, your personality operates as it was meant to in an integrated way from the inside out. It operates from
your spirit through your soul out to your body and then out to the rest of the world. As you do that your
whole personality becomes more and more conformed to God’s own unity and harmony. Of course, you yourself
become more fitted to live with Him forever and to take part with Him in the infinite development of the
universe after this life is over.

Our personalities, you can see, were meant to live from the inside out. Of course, when you don’t have that
sense of security from the Maker of the universe, you have a dreadful sense of insecurity. You know how it is.
You don’t need me to describe it.

If you then take a sheet of paper and put “BODY” at the top and “SOUL” in the middle and “SPIRIT” at the
bottom, you can see how, when your eyes see your poor financial situation, your emotions send a signal to your
mind and you become worried and troubled. Your will is left out and the conscience in the spirit is not
involved.

You can bring about a temporary security that lasts for about a week, but meanwhile your spirit still feels
that you are a little insect in a vast world with very little support that is visible. So, your spirit remains
dead and you never get a sense of real security and yet your soul and body live in continual strain.

There is a great way to live. Let’s talk a little more about it tomorrow.