What are you here for? That’s a question that can have normal reactions. For instance, if you go to the grocery store and your wife asks you to get a certain product, but if you are like me and you didn’t write it down, you begin to ask yourself, “Now, let’s see, what am I here for?” And if you still don’t know the answer, you call home and find out why you were sent to the store in the first place! Perhaps you are at Walmart in the sporting goods department and you need a certain item for your next hunting trip, and the sporting goods store patron asks you, “Can I help you? What is it that you are looking for?” So, you tell him, he gets the item, and you walk out a happy camper! Or even more like me, and a lot of other folks if you think about it, you are in one room in your house and you need something out of another room, but when you get to that other room, you ask yourself, “Now, why did I come in here in the first place?” Then you return to the other room you just came out of, to remember what it was that you were looking for. Can I get an “Amen” to any of these scenarios? Why did you go to the grocery store, or to Walmart, or just to look in that other room anyway? What in the world are you here for?
Let me tell you a little story. One late night, about 9:00pm when it was already dark, and in the winter time, a mechanic and his helper were working on a particularly hard problem in their shop, which was the reason why they were there so late. A little after 9:00pm, the shop phone rang. It seems that there was a young woman whose car had just stopped for some reason on the country highway and she needed some help in getting home. So the mechanic and his helper headed out of town about thirty miles to rescue the young woman. When they got there, it didn’t take long for the mechanic to diagnose the problem and fix it on the spot, but he needed a flashlight to be shown on the work area. That became his helper’s job. Being out in the country there are always strange noises in the dark as one animal or another darts across the highway. Suddenly his help heard a rustling noise darting through the bushes behind them and he quickly shined his flashlight in that direction. Of course, that meant that the mechanic could no longer see what he was doing. “Hey!” he cried out, “Shine your light over here! What are you here for anyway?”
That might be a good question for us to ask ourselves, “What are we here for anyway?” Jesus said, “I am the Light of the world. Anyone who follows Me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12) In Matthew, chapter five, He said, “You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. In the same way, so let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”
