Sunday, September 5, 2010

Purpose in Everything


“But I have raised you up [or spared you] for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
~Exodus 9:16 (NIV).
This is good news to every last person—at the heart and essence of each one as we chip away at the veneer of pride and pretence that we have running.
This really gets us home.
Part A of the above verse is a general charge to every one of us; part B could be a specific charge to Moses, for not all of us are called to preach God to the whole earth.
A Vision for Us All
Recently I had my mind drawn back, into a vision of things I’d seen before in this life. We’ve seen them on television and in the movies. These people just have something going on all the time—like a purpose in every conceivable moment that consumes them beyond their own selfish needs—and they’re won to others in such inspirational ways.
They have waking reason and they have sleeping reason; reason to live, to love, to learn... and even to laugh at themselves. Reason absolutely defines them.
These people have been released from themselves; this is truly our call.
Natural Born Leaders
Are there born leaders? There sure is... every one of us can know this life that leads and it leads not for itself, but it’s genuinely lost in the cause, for the cause’s sake. In this is the quintessence:
“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”
~Mark 8:35 (NRSV).
And the truth is, God’s saved or spared us for this purpose that God’s calling our hearts to right now. It may not even be the purpose we think it is. Indeed, there may even be several purposes for us to chase.
Our goal has to be to chase it and to find it.
The natural born leader—and we agree that is within the bounds of all of us—knows this seemingly elusive power of God. Jesus is in them as they harness God’s power to their call... and get this... whether they’re Christian or not. This is the wisdom of God that doesn’t simply bless the Christ-believer, but all who partake in the ‘deeper magic’ involved in God’s power.
The Importance of Reaching for the Call
God is calling us. There is a higher road for us, always.
We can find that thing we can lose our lives to, and when we do, everything in life will begin to make so much more sense.
Here we’re achieving that vision that gets us throwing ourselves out of bed in the morning and responding to life with quite an illogical, but incontrovertible, energy. And God’s done something weird in this for us; our whole worldview begins to warp toward the things that God has for us to do.
Finally we’re living the life we were predestined to live... however we determine it.
© 2010 S. J. Wickham.

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