Sunday, March 02, 2008

March 2...71 degrees and sunny

So I have been kind of fake writing a book. Mostly just writing a lot of my thoughts down in a cool notebooks and trying to tie things together. But one theme seems to resonate through the whole project, and even into journal entries dating back to last spring. The search for significance that we all come across. I think it is a pretty strong urge inside all of us (us being my generation) to find our purpose or significance. But it seems that everyone I talk to has an idea of what their purpose should be. It is as if we are searching for a purpose that fits into our idea of what we should be doing in life. We don't want to accept that perhaps we were meant for something different from what we want.

It is all well and good to want certain things in life, but when we start rejecting or minimizing our accomplishments something has gone wrong. We cannot say that we haven't found a purpose just because whatever purpose is put in front of us right now doesn't fit into our "plan" for our lives.

Which brings me to another point. We are so trained to plan ahead. Planning is a good thing, and you all know that I love me some good planning. Even if I do something seemingly spontaneous, usually I have a plan behind it. But I am looking around at my friends and seeing this need for planning paralyzing them. And this is why.

You want to plan, but you can't plan if you don't have an end goal. And that end goal is usually what you think your "purpose" is. So without finding a purpose that fits into your paradigm, you can't plan, which means you stay stagnant. But what if you won't discover your purpose until you take a step forward. It is ok to move ahead without a long term plan. It is ok to try different paths to see if they work or not. Just don't let yourself get stuck in the "I chose this path so I must stick to it" mentality (like I did for awhile here in Nashville). It is ok to change your mind.

As we all take steps forward in life, the significance of those steps will eventually be revealed. And that is our purpose. GOD calls us to abide in HIM. And HE is a living and moving GOD. HE is not stagnant...so neither should we be stagnant. Let's keep moving and discover what life has for us. It isn't enough to sit by and say "wouldn't that be nice if that happened or if that were true." Make it happen. Make it true. Trust that GOD will guide you if you remain in HIM.

And maybe our purpose, our significance, is to learn to trust GOD and live our lives for HIM, whatever that looks like. Think about it. It really is mind blowing.