Living the way I was designed

I realized the other day that in order to live well, we must live in accordance with how were are designed. Since we are multi-dimensional beings, being both spiritual and physical, it stands to reason that we are designed to live a certain way in both parts.

First of all, it is important to note that we are in fact, designed. This is an easy observation. We are not a product of evolution from a lesser life form and the sum total of millions of years of random mutations that ended up being the incredibly complex thing we call human today. I’m not debating exactly how we came to be or how long it took, I’m just looking at myself and saying that it is pretty obvious that I am the result of an intelligent, conscious designer, not the result of unconscious random forces acting on rocks and water that eventually become human. There are many parts of me that tell me so — I have a hand to hold, grab, and manipulate objects, I have senses that allow me to interact and receive feedback with the world around me. I have skin that allows me to live in certain environments and not others.

I am a designer by trade, so this all makes really wonderful sense to me because I design things all day long and have to think about this to actually make something well-designed. Its amazing that no matter how smart I am, through whatever amount of thinking or designing I put into something, I will never come close to something as beautiful as the design of a single-celled organism. How much more complicated is a human being where a certain percentage does not even exist is this dimension.

All things that are designed have a purpose. It may have a complicated purpose, or a simple one, but it is always designed with a purpose. A drill is made to create holes of a certain diameter into a certain kind of material at a certain depth. A light bulb is designed to accept an electric current and lighten up a room with a certain amount of light. I appear to be designed for a relationship with God as well as for other human beings. If I decided to use the drill as a hammer, it wouldn’t be long before I broke the drill. If I decided to use the light bulb as a hammer, I would break it very quickly. If I hit myself on the head as if I were designed to be a nail, I will be seriously injured. Speaking in terms of my primary purpose though, if I decided to alienate myself from all human and divine relationships and went and lived with the squirrels, I will injure myself spiritually.

But so far, I’ve been talking about primary purposes. The design of things is much more complicated than that. For instance, a drill is designed to be held in a human hand. Trying to get a dog to hold a drill with its paw won’t work because its not designed with a dog’s paw in mind. A light bulb is designed to accept electricity by being screwed into a certain diameter light bulb socket; It will not fit into a wall socket no matter how hard you try. A human being is not designed to live in a pit of lava — but in the open where there is air to breathe and the temperature is within a certain range. If I were to jump into a pit of lava wearing nothing but my clothes — I will disintegrate because I am not designed to live in lava.

So it appears that if I am to live my life well, I must understand how I am designed physically and spiritually and live in harmony with that design. If I don’t, I will be injuring myself, either on a physical level (I keep hitting myself on the head with a hammer eventually killing myself) or on a spiritual level (I refuse to have anything to do with God and become spiritually emaciated — or spiritually dead.)

Unlike a drill or a lightbulb, I have the ability to reason and think. And being this way, I might decide I don’t like the way I was designed and decide to live in such a way that I was not designed to live. Without thinking about things, this may sound noble, like pulling myself up above my current situation and becoming something greater. However, in practice it appears that if I do so, there are some bad consequences. If I try to live in a pit of lava, I will probably die. If I try to marry a squirrel and live happily ever after in a tree, my marriage is not going to be fulfilling or happy. So it appears that I can’t live well if I depart from living as I was designed to live.

Can’t I alter the way I was designed? Not unless I know how to re-create or re-design myself, which I don’t. Obviously, since I am not able to re-create or re-design myself, what can I do if I don’t like the way I was designed? Maybe I could lie to myself or trick myself into thinking I was designed another way. What will happen? Its not hard to figure out — regardless of what I think, not living as I was designed will still result in injuring myself spiritually or physically. Thinking differently from reality does not change reality.

What can I do to live the best life possible? Find out how I am designed to live, then live as I am designed.  This is simple in concept, but will probably take my whole life to grasp.  I am designed to be in a relationship with God and other human beings. However, I’m not one who simply lives life without thinking about it. There is truth all over the place here just waiting to be discovered — the next question is how do I have a relationship with God and other human beings? Can the answer to these things be found within observing my design? I believe it can be. In this life, it is good to be a serious student of how we are designed — this is how I will begin to understand the spiritual and physical world which I find myself a part of. In the meantime, I will embrace how I was designed as good and right because I know for a fact that not acting in accordance with this design I will end up unhappy or dead. Changing how I am designed is impossible — and trying to pretend it isn’t so is not going to make any difference.

This thinking leads to some interesting conclusions — It appears men and women were made to be in a marriage relationship with each other by observing our bodies physically and our minds spiritually (Note: Please don’t confuse this thinking with any current political agendas. Politics and finding truth go together like oil and water). This is good for some reason because it was how we are designed. I must embrace that I was designed to spiritually decay — my default nature is a self-destructive one. This is good for some reason because it was how I am designed. Why is it good that men and women are exclusively meant to be in a marriage relationship? Why is it good that my nature is self-destructive? These are the right questions to be asking when trying to find the truth about ourselves and about the One who designed us.