Friday 6th March - Finding Your Purpose

DAILY BYTE

During World War 2, prisoners of war in a certain Japanese concentration camp were forced to spend their days digging a massive hole at one end of the camp. They then had to bag the dirt into sacks and carry them all the way to the opposite end of the camp where they were instructed to fill another giant hole. Once they had completed this task, they were forced to begin the whole process all over again, this time digging up the hole they had just filled and carrying the dirt back to fill the original hole. The aim of this was to de-motivate the POW’s through taking away any sense of true purpose in their labour.

It broke their spirit’s to put a whole lot of effort into something for no real reason or purpose.

I reflected on this story in our church recently when we were celebrating a baptism event. This is because baptism stands in stark contrast to the scene of the POW’s hopelessness and loss of purpose. Baptism is a powerful reminder that God has special plans and purposes in place for each and every single one of us – no matter how small and insignificant we may feel.

God has created us to mean something, to be a part of the ongoing creation of goodness in this world. This meaning is not tied up in fame, wealth, power and the acknowledgement of our peers. If we aim in those directions to find purposes, the problem is not that we are aiming too high, but too low! If we shape our lives around anything other than God’s design we will find by our life’s end that all we have really been doing is transporting sand from one area to another – in terms of greater cosmic significance it has meant very little.

The author John Ortberg warns us that just as every life has a specific divine purpose, so also every life struggles with the temptation of a lesser, shadow purpose. Sometimes the world, or quite frankly our own sin – the darkness within - tries to impose these shadow purposes onto us. For we are all created for a Godly purpose, but if we don’t embrace that purpose as a way of life then we can slip into shadow purposes and begin to centre our lives on things that are dark or selfish or just plain shallow.

This is why it is so vital that we hear and obey God’s call. God’s call for us to courageously and sacrificially centre our lives not around our own selfish concerns, but around the concerns of God. For we all have a specific created purpose!

This purpose changes as the years go by and we grow and develop or our circumstances change. But always our specific life purpose will be found within the more general command of Jesus – the great command(ment) of Jesus. Today’s focus reading reminds us that we are to found and shape our lives around loving God, and loving others as we love ourselves. If we do that in a way that is humble and open, if we take the time to carefully listen to God and not rush by all our life’s burning bushes – well then, we will hear the voice of God speaking to us rather specifically – calling us to move beyond ourselves and into the great, wide open spaces of God’s mercy and love: To become part of God’s ongoing creation of goodness in this world.

What is your shadow purpose?

Write down what you feel God may be specifically calling you to do with your life (as this stage of your life)?

PRAY AS YOU GO

Holy God, as much as we are all created for a purpose, so we all struggle with various shadow purposes. We pray that you would reveal ours to us, and give us the strength not to allow any dream, activity, object, relationship or person, to suck the life out of the purpose you created us for. At the same time loving God, it is our prayer that you would open our eyes to our life’s specific purpose. Bring to us clarity, understanding, commitment and courage. Help us faithfully fulfil what you have created us to be at all times and in all times. Amen.

FOCUS READING

Mark 12 : 29-31

"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."