Thoughts on Purpose

I've been thinking much lately about one thing:

Purpose

And the ends and outs of it.

As always, I did what I like to do with fancy words: I looked up a definition of it.

Purpose: the reason for which something exists or is done, made, or used; an intended or desired result; end; aim; goal; determination; resoluteness; the subject in hand; the point at issue.

When I think of purpose, I think of a good thing... something positive.

Every once in awhile I will end a post with wishing you a good day, week or weekend and to make it good "on purpose".

And what I'm saying when I say that is for you to AIM for that weekend to be a good one. I'm asking you to expect and be determined for it to be a good one.

Now on a personal level, this whole purpose thing gets a bit more complicated.

But looking at the definition above, I can come to conclusion of what purpose is on an individual basis.

I think we've all, during our lifetimes at one time or another, have been alone with our thoughts and asked the following question:

What is my purpose?

And looking at the definition above, esentially what I am asking myself is"

What is the reason I exist? What am I suppose to be doing?

And you know me, I look at everything for myself for a spiritual perspective.

Essentially, I've asked myself:

Why am I here? What is God's purpose for my life? What was the purpose for which I was created? What is my life assignment?

Those are difficult difficult questions. Very difficult. It's a difficult topic indeed.

And here's the thing: it's not suppose to be so difficult.

I bought a book on life assignments a good 10 years ago. I've been out in the garage trying to find it. It would've been useful for this topic indeed.

But what has me thinking about all of this is me being off from work, and my mind being clear enough to ask myself these questions.

And of course, 100% of the time, whatever I'm pondering or praying about, well, somebody at the church house is preaching on it.

I know when I'm off from work, I like to attend morning bible study on Wednesday and Friday. I try to catch at least one of those. As you know, my pastor is a very popular televangelist, but I like to get a chance to catch the assistant ministers because they have their own areas of specialty. So some of them, I look forward to, and hopefully I can catch them in that early morning rotation.

One particular minister I like much is a guy who specializes in walking in love, and something else: identity crisis. So I like him A LOT. He gets real heavy into who you are in God's eyes. And he's real good at explaining spiritual principles related to such.

So when I see him, I'm cheesing hard.

Identity crisis... man, that is such a difficult topic. But his God given purpose: to grab you by the neck and break it down to you. And he does it extremely well. As a matter of fact, when I think of the most important sermon I ever heard, it is one that he did on identity crisis, and it wasn't even what his sermon was about. It was just an intro to what he was going to talk about. But it was so important to me that I wrote what he said down, and posted it here on my blog (See, "The Mystery of Identity Crisis"

I've learned one thing from him over the years:

One's purpose can be born out of one's pain, frustration, or anger.

I think for him, he has a slight speech impediment, and he was told by teachers and everybody else all his life, since being a very young child that he would never be nothing. So he dealt with that pain for a good 20 years. He apparently got through it, and is an expert at lifting others out of similar problems and helping them feel better about themselves... and going on to fulfill God's purpose for their lives.

His purpose was born out of personal pain. And I see it all the time. A child is tragically murdered or dies and purpose is born out of that. I think of it every time I see the host of America's most Wanted. His show is responsible for catching a multitude of fugitives. Parents go on to create these foundations that move with such force that they force laws to be created or changed.

Any way, I was particularly struck by segments of a sermon last Wednesday morning, where Minister Phillips taught on the topic of how our problems tend to stem out of us doing our own thing and being/moving independent of God. And somehow he got over into what happened out in the Garden of Eden, and how it changed much.

Essentially, if you read the early part of Genesis closely, you will see that God put Adam here and gave him a job, a purpose: to dress and keep the place up.

That was his purpose. His God given purpose, his God given assignment.

Then all that mess went down. And Adam had stepped out of his purpose, his God given assignment for his life.

Interesting enough. What was more interesting is a mini-discussion about us who are on jobs that really have us all stressed out, etc...

It's because we aren't walking in our God-given purpose.

He explained when Adam was working in the Garden of Eden, within his purpose, that job was sweatless, gave him delight. That's simple enough to understand, and we can make that assumption, because later on, when things went astray, he was told that in sorrow and toil he would work the ground and live off of it. So you can assume that when he was walking in his purpose, it wasn't a thing of sorrow or toil.

And it's the same way now in this present day, isn't it?

When it comes to some of us and our jobs, that is.

Well, if not for you, then for me. Made perfect sense. I am very impatient with my job. I like it, independent of psychological and political mess and hoop jumping.

Some people play golf. I play chemistry. Just something I do.

But it ain't my purpose. I don't wake up thinking about it. I don't go to sleep talking about it. Most of my friends aren't chemists, so we don't have these sweeping deep scientific discussions.

It is my profession. Not my purpose.

And as a result, it is a thing of toil for me.

Me waking up in the morning: "Shoot. Got to get up and go to work. Deal with these jokers yet another day. DANG"

*lee kicks Oscar-Tyrone out of frustration*

No do not call PETA. I do not kick Oscar. I may yell at him to get out of my way. That's about it. But you get my point. That frustration and impatience, that sorrow experienced of having to get up and "go till the ground"...that is toil.

Working within one's purpose is suppose to be something totally different. So I learned something else that day.

Walking in one's purpose should be sweatless, and bring a sense of peace, joy or delight, and a sense of accomplishment.

Yeah, that's a lot to pull out of that message and reading. But it's gotta be true, you know? And when I say sweatless, you know what I mean. A man's purpose could be to build bridges, and he's sweating doing it...

But he's not waking up in the morning PISSED about having to get out there and do it. He can't wait to get up, and get out there and build that bridge! He probably woke up with a bright idea of how to solve a certain problem they are having with the bridges construction. He has his helpers on his mind, and how he can help them in the process. He can't wait to build that bridge!

Heck... I know I've awaken on occasion and have busted out crying because I gotta go to work. UGH. Maybe it was just my PMS. Who knows. But it's a busted feeling, I tell you that much. I don't like that type of sorrow at all.

So that's what I learned about purpose that day. And it helped me gain insight into my own purposes.

To be continued...