The Two Most Important Days

Mark Twain once said, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” 

When I first heard this quotation, I was watching a religious video. When the person said the first most important day is “the day you are born,” I immediately thought he was about to say the second most important day is the day you die. In Christian theology, physical death is not the end, it’s just the beginning. The first important day, the day of our birth, is when we join the Church Militant, those of us who fight the spiritual struggle that defines our time here on earth. Then, at the moment of our death, that’s when we (hopefully) join the Church Triumphant, those who live in eternal joy in Heaven. 

Of course, there are a couple of other options at the moment of death. We also could join the Church Suffering, those souls that are in Purgatory going through spiritual bootcamp to prepare for the joys of Heaven. Finally, people who die without having any genuine repentance for their sins or expressing any sincere faith in God end up outside of God’s love forever. The Bible makes it very clear that this state of eternal existence is, um, well, let’s just say it’s not very pleasant.

Anyway, when I first heard Twain’s quotation, that’s what I thought the second part would be: the day of our death. Obviously, in that fraction of a second, I didn’t think the whole thing through with the same level of detail I’ve explained in the previous two paragraphs. But I just thought the guy was about to say, “The day you die.”

So, I was a bit surprised when he said, “The day you find out why.” I thought, “Ooh, that’s clever. I didn’t see that coming.” Mark Twain was known for being rather clever, and this is a good example.

Finding out why you were born means discovering your purpose in life. For many people these days, their main purpose in life seems to be maximizing comfort and pleasure, and accumulating as much material wealth as possible. But those things are so fleeting; here one day and gone the next.

Seeking our true purpose for being alive means we have to look at the religious and spiritual component of this topic. After all, if we assume there is a WHY to our existence, then our Creator has to be part of the discussion. You see, if there is no Creator, if our existence is just a random cosmic accident, then there is no WHY. We just appeared on this planet for a brief time — no plan or purpose — and when we’re gone, that’s it.

Since we have a supernatural Creator, there is a WHY to our existence. The reason God created us is very simple: love. Jesus could not have been more clear when He taught that the two greatest commandments are to love God with all your heart, and to love your neighbor as yourself. 

That is the answer to the second part of Mark Twain’s quotation. The reason we were born was to enter into loving relationships — first with God, our Creator; and second with the other people God has put in our path during this adventure called life. 

Loving relationships are eternal. These relationships most definitely can continue on forever in Heaven. The eternal aspect of love makes it purposeful, not fleeting. 

Even though Mark Twain reportedly was very skeptical about religion, his famous quotation has a religious component, whether he intended that or not. The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out that the main reason you were created is to love God and to love your neighbor.

Everything else people focus on in this hectic world takes a distant back seat to our primary purpose in life: love. And the source of all love in the world is the Lord God Almighty.