Living on purpose

           So I was thinking the other day about living life. How much of it do we do on purpose? Now that may seem like a little bit of a funny question, but let me explain. Think about the things that really matter to you in life. The things that, in a way, define your life, these are the things that if people would ask you what really matters to you, you would think of first. To me, these are God, family, friends, relationships, people and ministry. Other people may have others. Then I wonder how much of the time do we really prioritize them? Like do we fit these things into our lives on purpose, or do they just happen to somehow, maybe, fit in around everything else around us?

            Its easy, its so easy just to take life as it comes, and sometimes it does get crazy hectic and busy, and its all we can do just to keep our heads above water. But are we stopping and thinking about these things that are making us busy, and really analyzing whether or not we want them to take precedence in our lives? Are we really living on purpose, or are we just letting life happen to us? Think about one of those things in life that you have just always wanted to do, but just never had time to actually get down to it and do it. Maybe we have to stop just long enough to actually think about what we do want in life. Maybe we have to take the time to live on purpose. Like maybe go for coffee with that person that we have always wanted to, but just didn't get a chance to. Or go hang out with a family member. Or most importantly, purposefully take the time to spend with God.

            I don't want us  to just let life happen to us. I want us to actually decide what we want, and then go for it. I want to see us bulding relationships on purpose, not just to let them happen, if they do. I want our lives to be defined by purposeful choices, not just default choices. Can we each take the time to choose what we really want, and then live our lives on purpose in that direction? Can we find and define our values and then live for them, instead of whatever comes our way? Can we actually truly live our lives on purpose?

Are you thirsty?

I was thinking about hunger and thirst this morning, and how I always feel that I am so hungry for God, or that I am so thirsty for God. But God has promised in Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” I would take that as a promise. I have many times taken that as a promise and even quoted it for others. I see in others a hunger and I am assured that God will fill them. But then I question, why do we not see that filling more often? Why does it seem like this world is so incredibly full of hungry people, but I do not see very many filled ones? Are we missing something?

I look up John 7:37b-38 “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” Now that is a promise! That’s an incredible promise! All we have to do is come to him and drink if we are thirsty. Is that maybe our problem? We do not know how to come? I wonder why are we sitting here out in the desert crying out that we are thirsty when God has promised us water? And then he says that if we believe in him those streams of water will flow from within us! Now that is powerful! So, is our hunger and our thirst simply because of a lack of believing in him? We don’t know, or believe who he is, we don’t truly understand his power and his ability to fulfill us, so we sit in starvation waiting to be filled? Could our problem be that we just don’t know how to come?

John 4: 13,14 says “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, that water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” So that promise is very similar. The water that God gives is a spring of water. It is something that never ever stops. So in other words once we truly come to God, we should never thirst again. I meditate on this promise and it is so unbelievably powerful. The water that Jesus gives is a spring of water! So when I have that spring inside me, I can flow out to other people and I will never run dry. That is an amazing powerful spring of water!

So then why am I still always so thirsty for more of God? Why have I not seen that spring in my life? Why do I not feel satisfied in him at times? I believe that it could be because I don’t come to him. I don’t come to him in faith that he WILL fill me. I don’t believe these promises. Can I come to him and believe that he truly is able to fill me, to not only fill me, but to allow that spring of water to well up within me? Can I believe that my father truly is good, and that he wants to fill me?

Once those streams of water flow within me, they got to come out! You cannot have a continuous stream inside of you. Eventually you will explode. When we truly commune with God, those streams of water start to flow, and they got to come out! God longs to fill you, can you come to him in faith and believe that he will?

Vision

I was just thinking about vision this morning, and I realized how much power there is in vision. I see people, many people in this life that do not have vision. There are people who simply work their nine to five job every day for years. They do it cause that is life. They do not stop to think about life, or their purpose. I am not saying this to be judgemental, because I do the same thing at times. But it makes me wonder. Where is their vision? Where is my vision? Why do I do the things I do? I think it is a very good question to consider. Am I doing what I do just because it is what is in front of me, or is there a deeper purpose? How many times do I actually just sit down and think about what the deeper meaning in all this is?

            I am not saying all this to get into depression or discouragement. I think that we need to realize more what our vision in life is. I think if we do not have a vision we need to start praying and asking God to show us a vision for our lives. We only have one life to live. Are we going to simply sit by and just do that which is in front of us to do, or are we going to live with passion, excitement, and vision; with a purpose and a passion for that purpose. I believe that every single person on this earth has a specific purpose for which they can get incredibly passionate about. So are we going to search for that vision, or are we going to let life pass us by simply because it is the easier path to take?

            I want to encourage others to find their vision. I believe very strongly that everyone can find vision. Vision makes life worth living. When we are passionate about what we are doing we become more passionate about God. I believe living with vision is one of the most spiritual things that we can do! I want to just sit down for a while, take some time to just think, and analyze what I am passionate about. Then start to dream. Think about this question “if you were guaranteed that you would succeed in anything you tried, what would you do”? Or, “If money was not a limiting factor, what would you do”? Those are the type of questions that pull out your vision.

            We are limited in our vision because we are so afraid of failure. We limit ourselves because of our fear of not having enough money. We bind ourselves because we look only at our limitations instead of our capabilities. I believe this is why there are so many of us who live without a vision. We are paralyzed by fear. But I think we need to start to allow ourselves to dream! Allow vision to open our eyes to possibilities.

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.  ~Howard Thurman

Busyness in life

Sometimes I question, why do we get so busy in life? I see people, many people, people all around me, each with their dreams, each with their plans, each with their lives to live, but each with a focus on themselves. Where does God fit into this picture? I see sometimes the culture of third-world countries. They don’t have the technology that we do. They don’t have the ability to get more accomplished in less time like we do. But they are never hurried. You see them all the time just chilling with each other, just hanging out on the side of the road. Why are they not too busy? And then I wonder, just what is their life like? I would love to just spend a month or so living in one of their homes. I want to see what poverty is like, but also I want to see what relationship is like. Sometimes I wonder if they actually have more than we do in the end. Are their lives richer than ours because they take the time for relationship? Does all our busyness really matter in the end?

 I was thinking today, there really are only two things that will last for eternity, and that is relationship with God, and relationship with people. Why then do we care so much about everything else? Shouldn’t we just focus on what is really important? Or how many times do we actually take the time out of our busyness to think about what is important? I do this myself, all of the time. I get myself so busy that I do not have to think. But I don’t want to do that. I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with being busy, but it is when that busyness takes priority over living life that it becomes wrong. Let me rephrase that. When we are so busy doing that we don’t have time to actually be with God while we are doing, then we are running into our busyness as a way to hide from God. Should God not be a part of everything that we do in our day? Can we not do everything that we do with him? But we forget do we not? We spend our “time” with God in the morning and then we are free for the rest of the day. Free from guilt because we put in our “time”.

But what about relationship? I want to see God as an integral part of absolutely everything that I do in my day! I want to see God in the relationships that I have with those around me. Isn’t that what God put people around us for? For us to find God in them? For us to live out love toward them? For us to express God? I believe there is something far deeper than what we see, in every single relationship that we have. Relationships are a spiritual experience. So then why do we get too busy for those relationships? I go back to my original question, what do we think is so important in life that we forfeit the things that matter the most?