DISCOVERING PURPOSE
Winston Churchill made a memorable observation about the nation of
Russia during a 1939 radio broadcast: “It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery,
inside an enigma.” William Shakespeare wrote a similar comment about
this journey that we call life. “It
is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
(Macbeth, act 5, scene 5) Unfortunately for far too many, all that life
represents can be summed up as riddles, mysteries, enigmas, idiotic tales,
furious sounds…a totality of nothing. Such
sentiments make it difficult to get out of bed in the morning, let alone to
confront the unknown and potentially troublesome circumstances of each new
day. Such is the perilous plight of those whose lives are devoid
of purpose.
Dictionary.com defines “purpose”
as “the reason for which something exists.”
Perhaps, our most momentous accomplishment prior to our ‘dirt naps’ will be the discovery of why we are here. It
is the question of our
lives. It is the underpinning of all our conscious and
subconscious thoughts; it is what fundamentally motivates all our decisions and
actions. Friedrich Nietzsche contended that “He who has a why to live can bear almost
any how.” I
heartily agree. It is the absence of purpose that haunts and hurts us most. To
live without purpose is
to live without meaning.
About a hundred years ago, a man looked at the morning newspaper
and, much to his surprise and horror, he read his own name in the obituary column. The
newspaper had erroneously reported the death of the wrong
person. His first response was total shock. He thought,
“Am I still alive? Am I here or there?” When he regained his
composure, his second thought was to find out what people had said about
him. The obituary title was, “Dynamite
King Dies” and it described him as “the merchant of death.” This
was the public view of that man, who was the inventor of
dynamite. When he read those words, “merchant of death,” something
stirred deep within and he asked himself an important question, “Is this how I
will be remembered?” That day, he got in touch with his deepest
feelings and concerns about life and decided that this was not the way he would
live or be remembered. From that point, he started working passionately
toward world peace. His name was Alfred Nobel and he is remembered
by the prestigious prize that bears his name, “The Nobel Prize.” Alfred
Nobel searched his heart, redefined his values, and transformed his
legacy. We can do the same.
Carefully consider this. If you were to leave this
plain-of-mortality today, how
would you be remembered by your family, your friends, your neighbors, your
colleagues, your co-workers, or even by your enemies? More
importantly, what ‘spiritual obituary’
would God inscribe
within the Book of Life?
The discovery of your purpose is the greatest gift and glory to The
Creator who endowed you with the most precious of personal gifts: your life. What are
you doing with that which HE endowed?
Jesus Christ taught a poignant parable about our Creator’s expected
return-on-investment. He said “the kingdom of heaven is as a man
travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto
them his goods.” (Matthew 25:14) This parable is significant because it is
symbolic of our God-given lives and our distinctive abilities. Our
Creator designed uniqueness in each of us.
The servants in this parable were provided with differing degrees of
“goods” or “talents” in accordance with their abilities: one, two, or five
talents. The servants who received two and five talents traded and
doubled that which had been initially granted. The servant who
received one talent hid it in the ground and offered insufficient excuses for
his lack of productivity at the return of the estate master. The
former were commended as “good and faithful servants.” (Matthew
25:21;23) The latter was condemned as a “wicked and slothful servant.”
(Matthew 25:26)
It is my contention that the one-talented-servant underestimated
both his personal worth and the value of that which had been entrusted to
him. It seemed small in his eyes, and that is precisely how he
treated it. The result was an unfulfilled life and a calamitous
ending.
What is your worth? What is
the value of the talents that
have been assigned to your hands? And what are you doing to maximize them? My
greatest fear in life is the possibility of standing before my Creator without
a meaningful response to this question or without fruit that would verify my personal
assessment. Jesus Christ issues this grave warning to all of
us. “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour
wherein the Son of man comes.” (Matthew 25:13) Ready or not, He is
coming. So, discover your purpose and pursue it!
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