Is This Really Living?

It is good, right?

There is a term that has been around since the 1950s called Activities of Daily Living... ADL. The term is used to describe the 6 most basic functional "skills" that adults should possess. They are:

• Ambulating- moving from point to point and walking independently
• Feeding- feeding yourself
• Dressing- choosing appropriate clothing and dressing yourself
• Personal hygiene- bathing, grooming, maintaining your dental hygiene, nails and hair
• Continence- controlling your bladder and bowel function
• Toileting- getting to and from the toilet and "tidying up" afterwards

According to the National Institute of Health, there is also a list of "Instrumental" ADLs. These are:

• Transportation and shopping
• Managing finances
• Shopping and meal preparation (shopping is evidently important)
• Housecleaning and home maintenance
• Managing communication with others
• Managing medications

I can't help but stay focused on the term "daily living." I know these described capabilities are primarily used to assess the degree to which adults may or may not need to be dependent on someone else to navigate pretty basic but necessary things. (I am intimately familiar with all of this these days.) And I don't really have a better description to offer to what they call "daily living." But there has to be more to daily living than the 6 basics and 6 bonus items above, right? I mean, wouldn't this be better described as "daily existing?" Is what's listed above... really living?

I vaguely remember my high school psychology class but I do remember reading about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. It was like the food pyramid only completely different. I know I need nuts, grains, and vegetables but, according to Maslow,  I also need intimate relationships and self actualization, among other things.

Source: Chiquo, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

So, if I have all these needed things, does that mean that I am truly living? Or am I just surviving, or existing, or is there some other basal term that is appropriate?

There has to be more to life than food, and shelter, and toileting, and shopping, and holding a fork, and being creative, and balancing a checkbook, right? I realize my question smacks of a myopic, first-world interrogatory but, my question remains nonetheless.

Isn't there more to life than having these core needs met?

Maybe the bible can help me out here. I'm not looking to merely get by, to only navigate from one day to the next until death us do part. So, I went looking to see what scripture says about life's intention. Well, as it turns out, there is a whole lot to be found there about how we should live our life and what our expectations can be in doing so. In fact, there is so much there that this blog won't remotely be able to do it justice. But one verse in particular stands out.

Jesus is answering the Pharisees in John chapter 10 (Jesus had just healed a man who was born blind and the Pharisees were fixated on his potential rule breaking and the reason for the man's blindness rather than the miracle Jesus had just performed.) In Chapter 10, Jesus explains why He came and uses the metaphorical image of being the Good Shepherd. The shepherd would lay down his life for his sheep. His sheep know him and know him so well that they can pick out his voice above all the noisy voices that might surround them. And then Jesus says this at the end of verse 10 (I'm quoting from the New American Standard version because this was my very first bible... given to me by my wife.) "...I came so that they may have life, and have it abundantly." (emphasis mine) Now that sounds better than activities and needs.

The Greek word used for abundant is περισσὸν (perissos) and Barnes' Notes on the Bible commentary translates it this way:

"Literally, that they may have abundance, or that which abounds. The word denotes that which is not absolutely essential to life, but which is superadded to make life happy. They shall not merely have life – simple, bare existence – but they shall have all those superadded things which are needful to make that life eminently blessed and happy.”

Thayer's Greek Lexicon defines perissos/ abundant as: "over and above, more than is necessary, superadded"

With all due respect to Sidney Katz' ADLs and Maslow's pyramid of needs, I'm pretty sure I want an abundant life. 

I want what Jesus is offering. I don't want to just get by day-by-day. And I'm not talking about material things or what the world would say is an abundant life. I want to live life with a different perspective and a different priority. I want what my Creator intended for me.

And that's why I have been a Jesus follower since 1984. And He is faithful.

Carol and I could not navigate our "daily living" without Him.

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