Welcome to this week’s installment of the Purpose Weekly letter. Purpose Weekly is sent to your e-mail box, you guessed it, weekly. There is no subscription fee. If you didn’t receive last week’s letter or if it’s lost somewhere in e-mail oblivion, you can go to www.gotpotential.org any time and read or print archived letters and back issues of True Potential Magazine.
If you forward Purpose Weekly to friends (and we want you to), ask them not to report it as SPAM. If they like the letter, encourage them to go to www.gotpotential.org to sign up for a complimentary subscription.
Last week we put an audio program (also complimentary) on the website (there will be more resources available like this as we move along). My father, whom a lot of you knew, who is now in heaven, teaches “Two Stage Obedience.” It’s a classic and one of my very favorites. The download takes several minutes, depending on your internet connection, but be patient, it’s worth it.
This week’s letter tells the story of “two stage obedience” in my own life and gives a simple jumping off place for it to begin in yours.
If you’ve had a similar experience, if you’re just not sure how or where to start, or if you would like to comment, please send me an e-mail or post a comment to this week’s blog at http://gotpotential.blogspot.com. Enjoy this week’s letter.
Purpose
Vol. 1 Issue 7
September 13, 2007
The weekly newsletter of True Potential Publishing
Two Stage Obedience
I’m an idea guy. I love ideas. That’s why I love books; they’re full of ideas. I read a lot. I think about things; turning them over in my head like a bread-maker kneads dough. A lot of my life has been spent inside my own head.
We live out in the country and we’re real do-it-yourselfers. We build our own barns, put up our own fences, build our own decks, and make most of the repairs around the house. We’re pretty independent in that respect.
Before I do anything on the property, though, I need to do it in my head. I need to do it over and over again in my head. I don’t mean plan out the job, I mean do the job; nail up the lumber, run the wiring, dig the trenches, everything. I build the entire project in my head several times before I pick up a hammer or a wrench.
Mentally rehearsing the job over and over kind of takes the place of drawing up blueprints and creating materials lists. It’s probably not a good substitute – I forget things – but it’s what I do. I’m wired that way.
One of the pitfalls a guy who lives inside his head so much can encounter is not knowing when to leave. Some folks may consider it admirable that I think so much and read so much and turn ideas over in my head like a bread-maker. Thanks, I appreciate your high regard. The problem though, is that I get so comfortable inside my own cranium that I tend to stay there instead of going outside when there’s real work to be done.
My wife is pretty patient. I announce that we’re going to build a fence around the lower pasture. She’s tickled. She’s wanted a fence around the lower pasture for years. Three months later there’s still no fence around the lower pasture and she’s beginning to wonder if I really meant to build a fence or if I was just talking.
What she doesn’t realize is that I’ve already built the fence, start to finish, every board, every post, every nail, about twelve times … in my head. What I don’t realize is that the fence in my head, no matter how well built, doesn’t really serve a practical purpose.
The fence in my mind is beautiful and well constructed. As far as I’m concerned, ninety percent of the work is already done. All that remains is to actually buy the boards, dig the post holes and grab a hammer. It’s a pleasant place to be. Most of my work is accomplished without the necessity of any actual labor. That’s why the queue of “ninety percent finished” jobs in my head is so long and the list of one-hundred percent finished jobs in reality is so short. It’s just easier in here.
*****
Before starting True Potential Publishing we had a packaging business. Back when I was employed by other companies, I established a reputation as a fast learner and a generally “smart guy.” I used that reputation and my ability to think through problems and express the solutions with semi-eloquence to start and build our own business.
Around the same time we started our packaging business, two salesmen from another company started their packaging business. I knew these guys from our previous employments. I admired them as go-getter salesmen and they thought of me as a kind of guru in our little industry. They used me and our company for technical jobs and brought me to their customers when they needed an outside “expert.” All in all, they thought I was very smart.
And I was. Our products were specialized; more engineered and complex. I could think big thoughts, see the big picture and persuasively express ideas for improving our industry. I was really good in a meeting.
My two friends admired what I did, but it wasn’t their bag. They liked the less technical products, the commodities - tape, bubble wrap, foam peanuts; the stuff everybody on the block was selling, but the stuff virtually every company used. They knew how to sell and that’s what they did. Every morning they’d get up and go to existing customers, meet new customers and cold call anybody they hadn’t met yet. Every day, every week, every month, all year.
Five years after we began our respective companies I went to visit my two friends at their facility. It was huge! They were five times our size and from the looks of it five times more successful. I was the smart one. I had the really special, really technical products. How could these two guys who sold bubble wrap and tape outgrow us so easily?
The answer was simple. They didn’t spend as much time building their company in their heads. They just skipped that part and went ahead building it in reality. There may have been some things they hadn’t thought through as well as I did. Their products certainly weren’t as technical or as designed as ours were. But they were a lot more successful.
They focused on execution. They just went out and sold their product. And they did it day after day after day. They didn’t spend a lot of time with meetings, forecasts, or competitor analysis. They were too busy selling tape and bubble wrap.
*****
Planning is a good thing. Mentally rehearsing can be a good thing too. But there comes a time to get out of one’s head and onto the street. A mediocre plan executed well in reality always beats the perfect plan that never gets implemented. The difference between intention and practice is the difference between knowing what you’re supposed to do and actually doing it.
My father called it “convictional obedience” versus “positional obedience.” Convictional obedience is knowing what you need to do, agreeing that it’s the right things to do and preparing yourself to do it. Positional obedience is doing it.
Here’s another little story about our former business. Before starting the business in 1997 I was an executive for a medium size manufacturing firm. I had spent about as much time as I could stomach in the corporate world and I was ready to move on.
I mentioned in an earlier letter that, instinctively, I always knew I was supposed to be in publishing. It never happened. I never planned or prepared for it. I took the first job that came my way and things just kind of worked out from there. In 1997 I was ready to go out on my own, start my own business. In 1997 I knew that I was to be writing and publishing full time. In 1997 I quit my job and started a packaging company.
Why? Why not a publishing company? That’s easy. I was afraid. I was afraid because I really didn’t know anything about publishing and I couldn’t see how things would end up down that road. Even though I knew what I was supposed to do and had known it all of my adult life, I couldn’t do it. The idea was just too big; insurmountable.
So I fell back on what I knew. I started a packaging company. I was a much younger man back then. It seems like a funny thing to say, after all, that was just ten years ago. But starting a company from scratch, with no money, bootstrapping all the way takes a toll. It ages you.
It also wasn’t what I was supposed to be doing. It’s not like I was running a prostitution ring or a drug cartel. It was a packaging company. I was gainfully and legally employed, I was supporting our family, I was providing jobs for others and contributing to the economy. There’s nothing wrong with running a packaging company. It just wasn’t what I was supposed to be doing.
Pouring your life into something, even if it’s good, may not be right. I know that I spent a big chunk of my life doing one thing when I was supposed to be doing something else. Were there books that didn’t get published, messages that didn’t reach their intended audience, lives that could have been changed but weren’t in those years? I don’t know.
All I know is that I knew what I was supposed to do in 1977. I knew in 1987. And I knew in 1997. I knew it but I didn’t do it. It was in my head, but there it stayed. I was in convictional obedience, but I didn’t do anything about it; I wasn’t in positional obedience.
It’s kind of like Moses spending forty years on the back side of the desert between “Delivering Israel I” and “Delivering Israel II.” The Israelites needed deliverance from the Egyptians a long time before Moses got around to discussing the matter with Pharaoh. Moses knew it as a young man, when he killed the Egyptian taskmaster. He knew when he was keeping an eye on the goats in Midian. He knew it when he argued with God in the desert about not being a qualified candidate for the job.
Moses knew that he was to be God’s instrument to deliver the Israelites. He always knew it. He also knew that the job was way beyond him and that he wasn’t qualified. He hadn’t seen any Israelites or Egyptians for forty years and he hadn’t parted company with either group under the best of terms. He had no clue about how to go about it and couldn’t imagine how the whole thing would all turn out.
Could he have delivered Israel twenty years earlier? Was he dragging his feet for forty years? Were there Israelite lives that should have been saved and Israelite oppression that should have been crushed while he was waiting it out in the desert? I don’t know. Moses didn’t know. Only God knows.
Don’t think that I’m trying to mess with God’s timing and purpose. I know that He has a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven (Ecc. 3:1). And I know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).
But I also know that God, in His mercy, puts things back together after we’ve screwed them up, heals our self-inflicted wounds and uses us for His purpose anyway. It’s an easy temptation for us to look back on our wasted days and attribute them to God’s timing and providence rather than to our own noncompliance with His will.
There was a very nice young man who also happened to be very rich. He had an encounter with Jesus and because of his wealth and prominence, just couldn’t bring himself to do what Jesus asked (Matthew 19: 16 – 22). From the story we can infer that the young man regretted his decision the moment after he made it. Did he ever reconsider his decision later and sell everything to follow Jesus? Did he become a follower of Christ after His crucifixion and resurrection? We don’t know; only God does.
What we do know is that this young man lost an opportunity he would never have again; to sit at the feet of Jesus, to walk with Him, listen to Him, become a friend of God while He walked among men. This young man just couldn’t take the step Jesus asked of him. He couldn’t make the transition from convictional obedience to positional obedience.
Just like building the fence in my head instead of the pasture. Just like choosing a career because it was easier than the one I was born for. Just like the young man who Jesus invited to become His disciple. All the good intentions and “wish I could’s” and “I’m gonna’s” in the world aren’t going to get you where you’re supposed to go.
Only going where you’re supposed to go will get you there. One step, a single step in the right direction is closer than you were yesterday. Don’t worry if you can’t see down the road. What do you see in front of your right foot? Make that step, I promise the next step will come into view when you do.
Until next week, God bless us all,
Steve Spillman
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Welcome to this week’s installment of the Purpose Weekly letter. Purpose Weekly is sent to your e-mail box, you guessed it, weekly. There is no subscription fee. If you didn’t receive last week’s letter or if it’s lost somewhere in e-mail oblivion, you can go to www.gotpotential.org any time and read or print archived letters and back issues of True Potential Magazine.
You’ve probably figured out that we’ve changed our opt-in service. This means you have to actually confirm you want Purpose Weekly to get it each week (you only have to do this once, not each week). This keeps us from getting on the wrong side of the SPAM police. If you forward Purpose Weekly to friends, ask them not to report it as SPAM and encourage them to go to www.gotpotential.org to sign up for a complimentary subscription.
We put an audio program, also complimentary, on the website. My father, whom a lot of you knew, who is now in heaven, teaches “Two Stage Obedience.” It’s a classic and one of my very favorites. The download takes several minutes, depending on your internet connection, but be patient, it’s worth it.
Purpose
Vol. 1 Issue 6
September 6, 2007
The weekly newsletter of True Potential Publishing
Following Instructions
Purpose is a pretty big idea. When we talk about “understanding your purpose in life,” the subject can seem kind of insurmountable.
A while back, I was involved in a Christian outreach project with the Jewish community. They weren’t sure if they trusted my intentions, so they invited me to meet with the local Jewish Federation. A rabbi who was concerned that the “outreach” was a veiled attempt to proselytize Jews wanted to corner me with a question that might reveal any hidden agenda on my part. He asked, “What do Christians believe will happen at the end of time?”
Hmmm…. I had to scratch my head for a second on that one. “Well,” I answered. “It depends on who you ask. There are probably as many answers to that question among Christians as there are among Jews. The bottom line is that you’re Jews and we’re Christians. You’re waiting for the Messiah to come; we’re waiting for Him to come back. Fortunately, our project isn’t focused on the end of time, and frankly, we have our hands full trying to get everyone to agree on what will happen next Tuesday.”
I don’t know if my answer satisfied him or confused him. Either way, it got me through the meeting. They agreed to work with us and the project was a success.
“What is going to happen at the end of time?” is a pretty big question. I figure that if I can successfully traverse the few days between now and next Tuesday, I’m that much closer to finding out what happens at the end of time; whether it’s the end of time in general or just mine personally.
Taking on a subject like, “What’s my purpose in life?” is kind of like taking on, “What’s going to happen at the end of time.” They’re both pretty big ideas. It’s a whole lot easier to ask, “What’s my purpose today?” and “What’s going to happen next Tuesday?”
I wrote earlier that God and I had made a deal about how I could follow His lead without getting lost. He would point me in the right direction and give me something to do each day. He didn’t tell me exactly how everything would work out “at the end of time” or even what I’d be doing six months from now. Just which direction I should be pointed in and what I was supposed to do that day.
He’s been faithful about keeping up His end of the bargain. I know which direction I’m supposed to be pointed in. Whenever I veer off course He always gives me a little correctional bump. The bumps aren’t even that hard; I guess that’s His mercy showing.
He’s saved me from a lot of heartache and wasted time through those little bumps. Looking back, I shudder when I imagine where my off-course path would have taken me. Thankfully, the correctional bump usually nudges me back on course before I’ve made too much of a mess of things.
It’s the same way with what I’m supposed to do. Each day I know exactly what I need to do and each day’s task is plenty. There’s a pattern too. What I do today will be necessary for what He wants me to do tomorrow. Tomorrow’s tasks will prepare me for the next day, and so on.
I don’t think I’m on this plan because God changes His mind each day about what I’m to do with my life or that He wants to keep His options open. As a matter of fact, the Bible says just the opposite. God knew us before we were born. His purpose for you and me individually was included in the master plan of the universe. Even better, according to Paul’s letter to the Romans, God actively participates in guiding our daily activities according to the plan.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).
I think the reason He doesn’t give me the whole plan in one shot is that it wouldn’t do me any good. He knows that my knowing exactly how my life will turn out, what day I’ll die or what day Jesus will come back, won’t help me get my job done today. It’s my limitation, not His. I couldn’t handle it. It’s too much information and knowing it would only add distraction to the task at hand.
Elaine and I have a motorhome. Whenever we can, we use it for travel and lodging instead of flying or driving a car and staying in hotels. We’ve flown a lot and stayed in a lot of hotel rooms in the past. We choose the motorhome.
Before a trip I’ll use a computer program to make a detailed plan of our route, with turn by turn instructions, pre-planned stops, estimated times of arrival, road construction warnings, places to buy fuel; everything planned out in detail from the time we leave the house, to our final destination and back to the house again. When I print out the plan and the detailed maps it usually takes up about six or seven pages. I staple them together and viola! I have our entire trip, down to the last detail. I can skip ahead and find out exactly what time we’re supposed to arrive at each destination, how much fuel we’ll use, and if there’s going to be road construction in Cincinnati. I pack the plan in my briefcase with the rest of my stuff and we’re off!
Here’s the problem.
A few hours into the trip I come across an unfamiliar road sign or turn-off. I ask Elaine to look at the plan and tell me what to do. First she has to find the plan. No … first she has to find the briefcase.
We’re rolling at sixty-five miles per hour, decision time is coming up fast and we’re still looking for the briefcase. Seconds are ticking off the clock before I have to go left or right, Elaine finds the briefcase and finally finds the plan. By this time we’re both flustered and the “go-left, go-right” sign is right in front of us. I say to Elaine, “Which way do I go, left or right?” She says to me, “Which page of the plan are we on?”
The plan tells me every detail, beginning to end and back to beginning again. At the moment though, it’s not doing me much good. I just need to know left or right - right now. It’s in the plan, but the plan’s just too much information for me at the moment.
Our friends, Jack and Gayle Kinsella, travel by motorhome too. Jack has a thing called a “Tom-Tom.” Tom-Tom is a little trip planning computer with a screen that sticks to the windshield of his motorhome with suction cups. It does the same stuff my trip planning program back home does.
Jack puts his desired stops and his final destination into Tom-Tom just like I do with my program. Tom-Tom computes every detail, turn by turn, stop by stop; just like my program does.
There are some important differences though, between Tom-Tom and my program. The first is that Tom-Tom goes with Jack and Gayle on their trip. If they run into a glitch, Tom-Tom re-computes and gives them new directions. The second is that Tom-Tom has a built in global positioning system and an electronic compass. It uses satellites to triangulate its exact location at all times and the compass shows which way it’s headed. Since Tom-Tom is with Jack and Gayle at all times, they always know where they are and which way they’re headed too. Knowing exactly where you are and which way you’re headed can be very useful on a long trip.
The third thing Tom-Tom does, and most important to me, is give Jack specific directions exactly when he needs them. One hundred yards before Jack needs to turn left, Tom-Tom will say (yup, it speaks), “Turn left in one-hundred yards.” Just in case Jack’s attention span doesn’t last one-hundred yards, Tom-Tom will do a little countdown for him. “Turn left in fifty yards.” “Turn left in twenty-five yards.” “Turn left in ten yards.” “Turn left NOW.”
I’m getting a Tom-Tom.
*****
That’s why I think God made the deal with me. He knows that having every detail of His entire plan for my life printed out and stapled together wouldn’t do me a lot of good in the short run. What I really need to know each day is, “Do I turn or right or left?” Fumbling around with a turn by turn plan of my life trying to find today’s direction would just confuse me. I’d be on page eight instead of page two and make the wrong turn. Too much information.
The important things for me to know are: 1) There is a plan from start to finish. God planned the route, complete with turn by turn directions, rest stops, and fuel consumption. He knows what I’ll need to get to where I’m going and how long it will take to get there. 2) He’ll always provide me with the turning instructions I need when I need them and a compass so I can always see which way I’m headed. If I screw up, He’s already got the contingency instructions in the system to put me back on the route.
The lesson I learned from this is that the result of the entire trip is contained in the turn by turn instructions, not in the general overview of the trip as a whole. In my attempt to see every detail of the entire trip in advance, boiled down into six pages of turn by turn instructions, I was missing the turns. It’s in the turns that the trip is made.
If I miss a turn because I’m not paying attention to where I am right now, and if I don’t correct and get myself back on the route, I’ll never get to my intended destination. I’ll eventually come to the end of my trip, even if I don’t follow the turn by turn directions; all trips come to an end. I’ll reach a destination; it just won’t be the destination intended when I began the trip.
The great fear, the great tragedy would be to find myself at the end of a road that goes nowhere; out of fuel, out of time … my trip ended unexpectedly, but ended nevertheless.
I know that God has a purpose for my life and I know that He has chosen me alone to fulfill this unique purpose. Just like he has chosen you to fulfill yours. Our trips have been planned in advance. To have faith that the plan and purpose for my life has already been mapped out is not the same as trying to see the end of my trip from where I am now. That’s the faith part.
And because God has already planned and purposed my life doesn’t mean that the outcome is inevitable. It’s up to me to follow the turn by turn instructions. That’s the free will part. In His love for me, even though He pre-ordained my existence, He still allows me to decide whether to accept it or not.
Let’s get back to where we started. Understanding your purpose in life is a pretty big idea. If you try to see the big picture and all of its details before you’re willing to commit to the first turn, then I’m afraid you might miss the specific instruction for the first turn. Is it left or right?
Thanks to our faith that God does have the big picture, complete with turn by turn instructions in His mind, and using His Word as our compass, we are free just to trust in each turn by turn instruction as it comes.
I can see a kind of confidence in Jack that’s been built after using Tom-Tom for a while. Tom-Tom already knows where he is, Jack just enters in where he wants to go. After that Jack doesn’t worry so much about the final destination anymore, he just concentrates on following each instruction as Tom-Tom gives them and keeps an eye on the compass.
It’s enough for me to know that God has my purpose in His mind. It’s enough for me to know which direction I’m pointed and to follow instructions as they come. I know that if I do just that, the rest of the trip will take care of itself and I’ll reach my final destination. It’s wonderfully reassuring to know that if I miss an instruction or deliberately choose my path finding ability over His, He already has a contingency route mapped out for me when I come to my senses and realize I’ve screwed up.
And at the end of it I’ll be able to look back and see that the entire trip was after all, in the turn by turn instructions.
Until next week, God bless us all,
Steve Spillman
You’ve probably figured out that we’ve changed our opt-in service. This means you have to actually confirm you want Purpose Weekly to get it each week (you only have to do this once, not each week). This keeps us from getting on the wrong side of the SPAM police. If you forward Purpose Weekly to friends, ask them not to report it as SPAM and encourage them to go to www.gotpotential.org to sign up for a complimentary subscription.
We put an audio program, also complimentary, on the website. My father, whom a lot of you knew, who is now in heaven, teaches “Two Stage Obedience.” It’s a classic and one of my very favorites. The download takes several minutes, depending on your internet connection, but be patient, it’s worth it.
Purpose
Vol. 1 Issue 6
September 6, 2007
The weekly newsletter of True Potential Publishing
Following Instructions
Purpose is a pretty big idea. When we talk about “understanding your purpose in life,” the subject can seem kind of insurmountable.
A while back, I was involved in a Christian outreach project with the Jewish community. They weren’t sure if they trusted my intentions, so they invited me to meet with the local Jewish Federation. A rabbi who was concerned that the “outreach” was a veiled attempt to proselytize Jews wanted to corner me with a question that might reveal any hidden agenda on my part. He asked, “What do Christians believe will happen at the end of time?”
Hmmm…. I had to scratch my head for a second on that one. “Well,” I answered. “It depends on who you ask. There are probably as many answers to that question among Christians as there are among Jews. The bottom line is that you’re Jews and we’re Christians. You’re waiting for the Messiah to come; we’re waiting for Him to come back. Fortunately, our project isn’t focused on the end of time, and frankly, we have our hands full trying to get everyone to agree on what will happen next Tuesday.”
I don’t know if my answer satisfied him or confused him. Either way, it got me through the meeting. They agreed to work with us and the project was a success.
“What is going to happen at the end of time?” is a pretty big question. I figure that if I can successfully traverse the few days between now and next Tuesday, I’m that much closer to finding out what happens at the end of time; whether it’s the end of time in general or just mine personally.
Taking on a subject like, “What’s my purpose in life?” is kind of like taking on, “What’s going to happen at the end of time.” They’re both pretty big ideas. It’s a whole lot easier to ask, “What’s my purpose today?” and “What’s going to happen next Tuesday?”
I wrote earlier that God and I had made a deal about how I could follow His lead without getting lost. He would point me in the right direction and give me something to do each day. He didn’t tell me exactly how everything would work out “at the end of time” or even what I’d be doing six months from now. Just which direction I should be pointed in and what I was supposed to do that day.
He’s been faithful about keeping up His end of the bargain. I know which direction I’m supposed to be pointed in. Whenever I veer off course He always gives me a little correctional bump. The bumps aren’t even that hard; I guess that’s His mercy showing.
He’s saved me from a lot of heartache and wasted time through those little bumps. Looking back, I shudder when I imagine where my off-course path would have taken me. Thankfully, the correctional bump usually nudges me back on course before I’ve made too much of a mess of things.
It’s the same way with what I’m supposed to do. Each day I know exactly what I need to do and each day’s task is plenty. There’s a pattern too. What I do today will be necessary for what He wants me to do tomorrow. Tomorrow’s tasks will prepare me for the next day, and so on.
I don’t think I’m on this plan because God changes His mind each day about what I’m to do with my life or that He wants to keep His options open. As a matter of fact, the Bible says just the opposite. God knew us before we were born. His purpose for you and me individually was included in the master plan of the universe. Even better, according to Paul’s letter to the Romans, God actively participates in guiding our daily activities according to the plan.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).
I think the reason He doesn’t give me the whole plan in one shot is that it wouldn’t do me any good. He knows that my knowing exactly how my life will turn out, what day I’ll die or what day Jesus will come back, won’t help me get my job done today. It’s my limitation, not His. I couldn’t handle it. It’s too much information and knowing it would only add distraction to the task at hand.
Elaine and I have a motorhome. Whenever we can, we use it for travel and lodging instead of flying or driving a car and staying in hotels. We’ve flown a lot and stayed in a lot of hotel rooms in the past. We choose the motorhome.
Before a trip I’ll use a computer program to make a detailed plan of our route, with turn by turn instructions, pre-planned stops, estimated times of arrival, road construction warnings, places to buy fuel; everything planned out in detail from the time we leave the house, to our final destination and back to the house again. When I print out the plan and the detailed maps it usually takes up about six or seven pages. I staple them together and viola! I have our entire trip, down to the last detail. I can skip ahead and find out exactly what time we’re supposed to arrive at each destination, how much fuel we’ll use, and if there’s going to be road construction in Cincinnati. I pack the plan in my briefcase with the rest of my stuff and we’re off!
Here’s the problem.
A few hours into the trip I come across an unfamiliar road sign or turn-off. I ask Elaine to look at the plan and tell me what to do. First she has to find the plan. No … first she has to find the briefcase.
We’re rolling at sixty-five miles per hour, decision time is coming up fast and we’re still looking for the briefcase. Seconds are ticking off the clock before I have to go left or right, Elaine finds the briefcase and finally finds the plan. By this time we’re both flustered and the “go-left, go-right” sign is right in front of us. I say to Elaine, “Which way do I go, left or right?” She says to me, “Which page of the plan are we on?”
The plan tells me every detail, beginning to end and back to beginning again. At the moment though, it’s not doing me much good. I just need to know left or right - right now. It’s in the plan, but the plan’s just too much information for me at the moment.
Our friends, Jack and Gayle Kinsella, travel by motorhome too. Jack has a thing called a “Tom-Tom.” Tom-Tom is a little trip planning computer with a screen that sticks to the windshield of his motorhome with suction cups. It does the same stuff my trip planning program back home does.
Jack puts his desired stops and his final destination into Tom-Tom just like I do with my program. Tom-Tom computes every detail, turn by turn, stop by stop; just like my program does.
There are some important differences though, between Tom-Tom and my program. The first is that Tom-Tom goes with Jack and Gayle on their trip. If they run into a glitch, Tom-Tom re-computes and gives them new directions. The second is that Tom-Tom has a built in global positioning system and an electronic compass. It uses satellites to triangulate its exact location at all times and the compass shows which way it’s headed. Since Tom-Tom is with Jack and Gayle at all times, they always know where they are and which way they’re headed too. Knowing exactly where you are and which way you’re headed can be very useful on a long trip.
The third thing Tom-Tom does, and most important to me, is give Jack specific directions exactly when he needs them. One hundred yards before Jack needs to turn left, Tom-Tom will say (yup, it speaks), “Turn left in one-hundred yards.” Just in case Jack’s attention span doesn’t last one-hundred yards, Tom-Tom will do a little countdown for him. “Turn left in fifty yards.” “Turn left in twenty-five yards.” “Turn left in ten yards.” “Turn left NOW.”
I’m getting a Tom-Tom.
*****
That’s why I think God made the deal with me. He knows that having every detail of His entire plan for my life printed out and stapled together wouldn’t do me a lot of good in the short run. What I really need to know each day is, “Do I turn or right or left?” Fumbling around with a turn by turn plan of my life trying to find today’s direction would just confuse me. I’d be on page eight instead of page two and make the wrong turn. Too much information.
The important things for me to know are: 1) There is a plan from start to finish. God planned the route, complete with turn by turn directions, rest stops, and fuel consumption. He knows what I’ll need to get to where I’m going and how long it will take to get there. 2) He’ll always provide me with the turning instructions I need when I need them and a compass so I can always see which way I’m headed. If I screw up, He’s already got the contingency instructions in the system to put me back on the route.
The lesson I learned from this is that the result of the entire trip is contained in the turn by turn instructions, not in the general overview of the trip as a whole. In my attempt to see every detail of the entire trip in advance, boiled down into six pages of turn by turn instructions, I was missing the turns. It’s in the turns that the trip is made.
If I miss a turn because I’m not paying attention to where I am right now, and if I don’t correct and get myself back on the route, I’ll never get to my intended destination. I’ll eventually come to the end of my trip, even if I don’t follow the turn by turn directions; all trips come to an end. I’ll reach a destination; it just won’t be the destination intended when I began the trip.
The great fear, the great tragedy would be to find myself at the end of a road that goes nowhere; out of fuel, out of time … my trip ended unexpectedly, but ended nevertheless.
I know that God has a purpose for my life and I know that He has chosen me alone to fulfill this unique purpose. Just like he has chosen you to fulfill yours. Our trips have been planned in advance. To have faith that the plan and purpose for my life has already been mapped out is not the same as trying to see the end of my trip from where I am now. That’s the faith part.
And because God has already planned and purposed my life doesn’t mean that the outcome is inevitable. It’s up to me to follow the turn by turn instructions. That’s the free will part. In His love for me, even though He pre-ordained my existence, He still allows me to decide whether to accept it or not.
Let’s get back to where we started. Understanding your purpose in life is a pretty big idea. If you try to see the big picture and all of its details before you’re willing to commit to the first turn, then I’m afraid you might miss the specific instruction for the first turn. Is it left or right?
Thanks to our faith that God does have the big picture, complete with turn by turn instructions in His mind, and using His Word as our compass, we are free just to trust in each turn by turn instruction as it comes.
I can see a kind of confidence in Jack that’s been built after using Tom-Tom for a while. Tom-Tom already knows where he is, Jack just enters in where he wants to go. After that Jack doesn’t worry so much about the final destination anymore, he just concentrates on following each instruction as Tom-Tom gives them and keeps an eye on the compass.
It’s enough for me to know that God has my purpose in His mind. It’s enough for me to know which direction I’m pointed and to follow instructions as they come. I know that if I do just that, the rest of the trip will take care of itself and I’ll reach my final destination. It’s wonderfully reassuring to know that if I miss an instruction or deliberately choose my path finding ability over His, He already has a contingency route mapped out for me when I come to my senses and realize I’ve screwed up.
And at the end of it I’ll be able to look back and see that the entire trip was after all, in the turn by turn instructions.
Until next week, God bless us all,
Steve Spillman
Monday, September 03, 2007
Welcome to our fifth installment of the Purpose Weekly letter. Purpose Weekly is sent to your e-mail box, you guessed it, weekly. There is no subscription fee. If you want to receive Purpose Weekly free via e-mail just go to http://www.gotpotential.org/ and sign up. Purpose Weekly is a publication of True Potential Publishing.Enjoy the articles below and remember to visit http://www.gotpotential.org/ to read more or to access back issues of True Potential e-magazine.
Purpose
August 30, 2007
The weekly newsletter of True Potential Publishing
Knowing Your Purpose in Life
I received a letter a while back from a guy I know. From all appearances he’s got his act together. He is a good Christian, attends church regularly and he’s financially successful. He’s a nice guy too; he doesn’t seem to have any hidden agendas or ulterior motives. As far I can tell he really, sincerely wants to do whatever God wants him to do.
That’s why I was surprised by his question. He asked me how he could find his purpose in life. Then it hit me that there are probably a lot of people out there that are otherwise successful and happy, but have no clue about why they are here.
Not so long ago I felt the same way; that my life was meaningless. I had a great family, a successful business and people liked me; but I felt like I wasn’t doing anything of significance. I didn’t see my life as having any sort of eternal purpose.
I put my trust in myself and in what I could see. I was responsible for putting food on my table and making my way in the world. As an employee I knew that if I did my job, the company would give me a paycheck. When I started my own business I relied on my customers to do their part. My company had a contract with Joe’s company. If I came through on my end and Joe came through on his end then we would get paid. I could see where things were coming from.
When things got beyond me, when there were obstacles I thought were impossible to overcome, I would go to God. I would work until I couldn’t think straight, eventually go home and try to forget the day and then go to bed to sleep it off and recharge for the next day. By midnight my worries would wake me. I’d turn over in bed, adjust my pillow, open the window, count sheep, count backwards; anything to push myself back into sleep. When none of this worked I would get out of bed, go into the next room, find my Bible, read and confess to God that I was finally at the end of my own ability and ask Him to get me out of the jam. It usually took till about 3:00 AM to come to this point.
God was always faithful, even though I wasn’t. He would provide a way out of the jam every time. As soon as I was out of the jam I would go back to relying on myself and the support systems I could see. Until the next jam and the next time I couldn’t sleep at 3:00 AM.
In all the years I did that, God remained faithful. I was doing my own thing, serving myself in every way. If there was ever anything He wanted me to do for Him I would have missed it completely; I wasn’t paying attention.
Looking back, I can see how His purpose still worked itself in. I had to learn (and I’m a slow learner) that relying on myself and what I can see is way overrated. I had to learn that the stuff I couldn’t see was more reliable than the stuff I could see. I had to learn that everything I could accomplish in my own strength, relying on my own talent and grit, wasn’t much and it certainly didn’t transfer into the next world.
I also learned something else. I learned that God’s purpose for me kept right on trucking – even though I wasn’t mentally, physically or spiritually involved. That was the part about Him being faithful even though I wasn’t. He knew that I had to get on the other side of all that stuff before I would finally come to the realization that none of it mattered in the long run. He knew that because of my arrogance and obstinacy and selfishness, He would have to be faithful and care for me in spite of myself until I was ready to listen. I didn’t give Him any good reason to be patient with me. He just was. It was His grace that waited for me. Nothing I did deserved any sort of grace period.
Like I said, He worked in my life anyway. He directed where I went and what I did and who I met, even though I wasn’t asking for any sort of direction. A lot of people come to the realization that God loves them and has something He wants to do with their lives, and when they do they get hit with this wave of regret. Regret over all the wasted years before they came to the place where they’re ready to surrender to the purpose God has for them.
I see wasted years in my life; days I’ll never get back, time that could have been spent a lot more productively. I carry some emotional, spiritual, and physical scars that probably wouldn’t be there if I had surrendered to His plan earlier. Way worse – others carry scars of my making, that wouldn’t be there if I had surrendered to His plan earlier.
God’s grace is sufficient even for that. He heals the wounds, self-inflicted and inflicted on others. He takes the tragedies and wasted time and stupid things I’ve done – things that were not in His purpose for me – and by His grace turns them to His purpose. When I’m finally ready to surrender to Him, he begins healing and restoring the mess I’ve made. He leaves some of the scars though; as reminders of what I can accomplish in my own strength.
Looking back, I can see how He has taken the wasted time and stupid stuff and big mistakes and turned them into preparation for what He wants me to be.
A million years ago, in my first semester in college, I signed up as a journalism major. That lasted ten weeks. When the first semester was finished, so was my career as a journalist. That was a long time ago and I’ve had a lot of “careers” since then. Roto-Rooter man, sign maker, carpet cleaner, pig farmer (yup, pig farmer), factory worker, salesman, businessman and now publisher. Funny how things come back around. The point is that, instinctively, I knew what I was supposed to do, what I had been created for, but I wasn’t ready and the time hadn’t come for what God wanted me to do.
*****
Moses was born to deliver the Jews from bondage in Egypt. It was obvious. As a baby his life was miraculously spared at a time when Pharaoh had decreed that all Hebrew baby boys be thrown into the Nile River. Moses’ mother couldn’t do that. She constructed a little boat and set baby Moses afloat on the Nile. Technically, she had complied with Pharaoh’s decree.
Miraculously Moses’ little boat drifted past Pharaoh’s daughter as she was bathing in the river. Pharaoh’s daughter saw the baby and a little warm spot opened in her heart. She adopted Moses as her own son.
It seemed that God’s plan had worked perfectly. Moses life was saved and he was installed in the house of Pharaoh, as his grandson. God couldn’t have orchestrated things more perfectly! With Moses as a part of Pharaoh’s family he would be in the perfect position to answer the plight of his Hebrew brothers.
Chances are Moses knew it too. It was no secret to him that he was a Hebrew and it was no secret that his destiny had been guessed at as the deliverer of his people. Why would God place him in this position of power unless He meant to use it to aid His people?
The Children of Israel had been in Egypt for four hundred years. By this time stories of the land promised to great-great grandfather Jacob had probably faded into myth. At least ten generations of Israel’s children had been born in Egypt. And they thrived. The family of Jacob, a mere seventy souls when they first arrived in Egypt, had become a people of two million strong. The flourishing of the Hebrews didn’t escape the notice of the Egyptians. To keep them in their place the Egyptians made the Hebrews their slaves and to keep their numbers in check they decreed that all Hebrew boys were to be killed at birth.
The Hebrews were ripe for deliverance. But it’s doubtful that they understood deliverance meant being ejected from their adopted country of more than four hundred years, wandering through a desert wilderness for forty years and then getting deposited into a land overrun with tribes of giants that would definitely react with hostility toward a sea of newcomers. The Hebrews weren’t looking for that kind of deliverance.
It’s a pretty good bet that Moses, even though he may have known in his heart that he was to deliver his people, had no idea what deliverance meant. He gave it a go early on and his efforts ended in disaster.
Moses killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew. The next day he tried to break up a fight between two of his Hebrew brothers and they both turned on him.
“Who are you to be the judge over us? Will you kill us like you did the Egyptian?” The news was out. Moses was a wanted man. The Hebrews wanted nothing to do him and the Egyptians wanted him dead. In utter confusion and in fear for his life, Moses took off for the back side of the desert.
Can you imagine what was going through Moses’ mind? He had always felt a sense of destiny. Everything in his life up until now had pointed to him as the deliverer of his people. Now he was a fugitive, running for his life into the desert.
For forty years Moses hid out in the desert. I wonder how often he thought about Egypt and his people. About how sure he had been that he was to be their deliverer. How he had been put in a position of power in Egypt, the perfect platform from which to rescue his people. And how he had blown it; killed a man and killed any chance of fulfilling his destiny.
Moses knew his destiny instinctively, but he had no way of knowing how God would fulfill that destiny in him. It took forty years to prepare Moses to fulfill his destiny God’s way and not his own.
*****
Back to my friend who didn’t seem to know his purpose in life. I believe that each of us has an inkling of why we’re here. God’s purpose is ingrained in us like DNA. It’s there, and if you can’t see it now, you’ll be surprised by its familiarity when you finally do see it.
Hindsight is 20/20. It’s easier to see our purpose in retrospect. We look back over our lives and say, “Ahh! I always knew that’s what I was supposed to do, but I never guessed it would have happened that way.”
Now you’re probably saying, “Thanks for all the warm words Steve, but how does that help me now? I want to know what I’m supposed to be doing now. I don’t care about looking back over my life and saying, ‘Ahh!’ I want to look ahead and figure out which way to go.”
Okay, fair enough. Here’s how to know what God wants you to do right now. Here’s how to fulfill your eternal purpose, your personal destiny right now. Ready? Got a pencil and paper? It’s a three step process, so I don’t want you to miss anything.
1. Ask Him – He knows what He wants you to do. He knows that down deep inside, you know too. You may not know you know, but it’s down there. Ask. That way He knows you’re ready for step number two.
2. Listen – The primary thing to do after you’ve asked someone a question is to listen for his reply. Weirdly enough, we don’t do this a lot. Weirder still, we hardly do it at all when we’re talking with God. The few minutes we actually spend talking with God is really spent talking to God: “Please God do this for me.” “Please God do that for me.” “Please God take care of Aunt Bessie and make her gout go away.” “Please God watch out for my kid; he just got his driver’s license and I don’t want him running into a tree.” “Please God don’t make my boss such a jerk.” “And if You have time, please, please, please make sure my wife gets that raise; we really need the extra money.” “Thanks so much for all You do and thanks so much for listening. Okay. I gotta go.”
If God ever did want to say anything to you He wouldn’t have the chance. Just stop and listen. He already knows what you need, so if you’re in a rush, cut out some of the asking time and turn it into listening time. Better yet, don’t be in such a rush. Do you really think anything else in your schedule is more important? Give Him a few minutes. Quiet your mind and open your heart. He’ll start talking as soon as he knows you’re ready to listen. And don’t get all spooky about the idea of God talking to you. There won’t be any lightning bolts or trumpets (if there are let me know). That’s why it’s called “a still small voice,” so people won’t freak out when they hear it. It’s the Holy Spirit. He’s supposed to be living inside you when you give your heart to God. You hear His voice with your mind and heart, not with your ears. That brings us to step number three.
3. Do what He tells you - And He won’t tell you to jump off the roof or leave your wife. If it’s God, whatever He says will agree with His Word. If it goes against what’s written in the Bible, you’d better go back to step number one.
God made a deal with me a few years back, when I was finally ready to do what He said. He let me know the general direction He was taking me and He lets me know every day what He wants me to do. Both of these things I know unequivocally. There’s no doubt, no question in my mind. In the beginning He had to prove it to me with regular and miraculous “coincidences” all piling up in His favor. After a while I got the hang of it and just learned to trust Him for these two things. I have no clue where I’ll wind up or what I’ll be doing six months from now. But I know exactly which direction I’m pointed and what I’m supposed to being doing today. The system works pretty well.
Like I said, it’s a deal God made with me. I don’t know if He does that for everybody. Some people have a lot more faith and probably don’t need the constant reassurance. God knows what I’m capable of and so He does it this way with me. Whatever method He uses to guide you, He’ll tailor it to fit you and you’ll know it’s Him.
So, to the friend who wrote the letter, if you’re still listening, try this. If you’re not the guy who wrote the letter but you’re listening anyway, feel free to try it too. If you want to know your purpose in life:
1. Ask God
2. Listen to what He tells you
3. Do it.
Sounds almost too simple doesn’t it?
Purpose News
A new feature you’ll see on our www.gotpotential.org website will be some free resources, including audio teaching on MP3 and e-booklets for free download. You should see the first of these popping up on the website by next week’s letter.
Until then, God bless you and keep you.
In Him,
Steve Spillman
Purpose
August 30, 2007
The weekly newsletter of True Potential Publishing
Knowing Your Purpose in Life
I received a letter a while back from a guy I know. From all appearances he’s got his act together. He is a good Christian, attends church regularly and he’s financially successful. He’s a nice guy too; he doesn’t seem to have any hidden agendas or ulterior motives. As far I can tell he really, sincerely wants to do whatever God wants him to do.
That’s why I was surprised by his question. He asked me how he could find his purpose in life. Then it hit me that there are probably a lot of people out there that are otherwise successful and happy, but have no clue about why they are here.
Not so long ago I felt the same way; that my life was meaningless. I had a great family, a successful business and people liked me; but I felt like I wasn’t doing anything of significance. I didn’t see my life as having any sort of eternal purpose.
I put my trust in myself and in what I could see. I was responsible for putting food on my table and making my way in the world. As an employee I knew that if I did my job, the company would give me a paycheck. When I started my own business I relied on my customers to do their part. My company had a contract with Joe’s company. If I came through on my end and Joe came through on his end then we would get paid. I could see where things were coming from.
When things got beyond me, when there were obstacles I thought were impossible to overcome, I would go to God. I would work until I couldn’t think straight, eventually go home and try to forget the day and then go to bed to sleep it off and recharge for the next day. By midnight my worries would wake me. I’d turn over in bed, adjust my pillow, open the window, count sheep, count backwards; anything to push myself back into sleep. When none of this worked I would get out of bed, go into the next room, find my Bible, read and confess to God that I was finally at the end of my own ability and ask Him to get me out of the jam. It usually took till about 3:00 AM to come to this point.
God was always faithful, even though I wasn’t. He would provide a way out of the jam every time. As soon as I was out of the jam I would go back to relying on myself and the support systems I could see. Until the next jam and the next time I couldn’t sleep at 3:00 AM.
In all the years I did that, God remained faithful. I was doing my own thing, serving myself in every way. If there was ever anything He wanted me to do for Him I would have missed it completely; I wasn’t paying attention.
Looking back, I can see how His purpose still worked itself in. I had to learn (and I’m a slow learner) that relying on myself and what I can see is way overrated. I had to learn that the stuff I couldn’t see was more reliable than the stuff I could see. I had to learn that everything I could accomplish in my own strength, relying on my own talent and grit, wasn’t much and it certainly didn’t transfer into the next world.
I also learned something else. I learned that God’s purpose for me kept right on trucking – even though I wasn’t mentally, physically or spiritually involved. That was the part about Him being faithful even though I wasn’t. He knew that I had to get on the other side of all that stuff before I would finally come to the realization that none of it mattered in the long run. He knew that because of my arrogance and obstinacy and selfishness, He would have to be faithful and care for me in spite of myself until I was ready to listen. I didn’t give Him any good reason to be patient with me. He just was. It was His grace that waited for me. Nothing I did deserved any sort of grace period.
Like I said, He worked in my life anyway. He directed where I went and what I did and who I met, even though I wasn’t asking for any sort of direction. A lot of people come to the realization that God loves them and has something He wants to do with their lives, and when they do they get hit with this wave of regret. Regret over all the wasted years before they came to the place where they’re ready to surrender to the purpose God has for them.
I see wasted years in my life; days I’ll never get back, time that could have been spent a lot more productively. I carry some emotional, spiritual, and physical scars that probably wouldn’t be there if I had surrendered to His plan earlier. Way worse – others carry scars of my making, that wouldn’t be there if I had surrendered to His plan earlier.
God’s grace is sufficient even for that. He heals the wounds, self-inflicted and inflicted on others. He takes the tragedies and wasted time and stupid things I’ve done – things that were not in His purpose for me – and by His grace turns them to His purpose. When I’m finally ready to surrender to Him, he begins healing and restoring the mess I’ve made. He leaves some of the scars though; as reminders of what I can accomplish in my own strength.
Looking back, I can see how He has taken the wasted time and stupid stuff and big mistakes and turned them into preparation for what He wants me to be.
A million years ago, in my first semester in college, I signed up as a journalism major. That lasted ten weeks. When the first semester was finished, so was my career as a journalist. That was a long time ago and I’ve had a lot of “careers” since then. Roto-Rooter man, sign maker, carpet cleaner, pig farmer (yup, pig farmer), factory worker, salesman, businessman and now publisher. Funny how things come back around. The point is that, instinctively, I knew what I was supposed to do, what I had been created for, but I wasn’t ready and the time hadn’t come for what God wanted me to do.
*****
Moses was born to deliver the Jews from bondage in Egypt. It was obvious. As a baby his life was miraculously spared at a time when Pharaoh had decreed that all Hebrew baby boys be thrown into the Nile River. Moses’ mother couldn’t do that. She constructed a little boat and set baby Moses afloat on the Nile. Technically, she had complied with Pharaoh’s decree.
Miraculously Moses’ little boat drifted past Pharaoh’s daughter as she was bathing in the river. Pharaoh’s daughter saw the baby and a little warm spot opened in her heart. She adopted Moses as her own son.
It seemed that God’s plan had worked perfectly. Moses life was saved and he was installed in the house of Pharaoh, as his grandson. God couldn’t have orchestrated things more perfectly! With Moses as a part of Pharaoh’s family he would be in the perfect position to answer the plight of his Hebrew brothers.
Chances are Moses knew it too. It was no secret to him that he was a Hebrew and it was no secret that his destiny had been guessed at as the deliverer of his people. Why would God place him in this position of power unless He meant to use it to aid His people?
The Children of Israel had been in Egypt for four hundred years. By this time stories of the land promised to great-great grandfather Jacob had probably faded into myth. At least ten generations of Israel’s children had been born in Egypt. And they thrived. The family of Jacob, a mere seventy souls when they first arrived in Egypt, had become a people of two million strong. The flourishing of the Hebrews didn’t escape the notice of the Egyptians. To keep them in their place the Egyptians made the Hebrews their slaves and to keep their numbers in check they decreed that all Hebrew boys were to be killed at birth.
The Hebrews were ripe for deliverance. But it’s doubtful that they understood deliverance meant being ejected from their adopted country of more than four hundred years, wandering through a desert wilderness for forty years and then getting deposited into a land overrun with tribes of giants that would definitely react with hostility toward a sea of newcomers. The Hebrews weren’t looking for that kind of deliverance.
It’s a pretty good bet that Moses, even though he may have known in his heart that he was to deliver his people, had no idea what deliverance meant. He gave it a go early on and his efforts ended in disaster.
Moses killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew. The next day he tried to break up a fight between two of his Hebrew brothers and they both turned on him.
“Who are you to be the judge over us? Will you kill us like you did the Egyptian?” The news was out. Moses was a wanted man. The Hebrews wanted nothing to do him and the Egyptians wanted him dead. In utter confusion and in fear for his life, Moses took off for the back side of the desert.
Can you imagine what was going through Moses’ mind? He had always felt a sense of destiny. Everything in his life up until now had pointed to him as the deliverer of his people. Now he was a fugitive, running for his life into the desert.
For forty years Moses hid out in the desert. I wonder how often he thought about Egypt and his people. About how sure he had been that he was to be their deliverer. How he had been put in a position of power in Egypt, the perfect platform from which to rescue his people. And how he had blown it; killed a man and killed any chance of fulfilling his destiny.
Moses knew his destiny instinctively, but he had no way of knowing how God would fulfill that destiny in him. It took forty years to prepare Moses to fulfill his destiny God’s way and not his own.
*****
Back to my friend who didn’t seem to know his purpose in life. I believe that each of us has an inkling of why we’re here. God’s purpose is ingrained in us like DNA. It’s there, and if you can’t see it now, you’ll be surprised by its familiarity when you finally do see it.
Hindsight is 20/20. It’s easier to see our purpose in retrospect. We look back over our lives and say, “Ahh! I always knew that’s what I was supposed to do, but I never guessed it would have happened that way.”
Now you’re probably saying, “Thanks for all the warm words Steve, but how does that help me now? I want to know what I’m supposed to be doing now. I don’t care about looking back over my life and saying, ‘Ahh!’ I want to look ahead and figure out which way to go.”
Okay, fair enough. Here’s how to know what God wants you to do right now. Here’s how to fulfill your eternal purpose, your personal destiny right now. Ready? Got a pencil and paper? It’s a three step process, so I don’t want you to miss anything.
1. Ask Him – He knows what He wants you to do. He knows that down deep inside, you know too. You may not know you know, but it’s down there. Ask. That way He knows you’re ready for step number two.
2. Listen – The primary thing to do after you’ve asked someone a question is to listen for his reply. Weirdly enough, we don’t do this a lot. Weirder still, we hardly do it at all when we’re talking with God. The few minutes we actually spend talking with God is really spent talking to God: “Please God do this for me.” “Please God do that for me.” “Please God take care of Aunt Bessie and make her gout go away.” “Please God watch out for my kid; he just got his driver’s license and I don’t want him running into a tree.” “Please God don’t make my boss such a jerk.” “And if You have time, please, please, please make sure my wife gets that raise; we really need the extra money.” “Thanks so much for all You do and thanks so much for listening. Okay. I gotta go.”
If God ever did want to say anything to you He wouldn’t have the chance. Just stop and listen. He already knows what you need, so if you’re in a rush, cut out some of the asking time and turn it into listening time. Better yet, don’t be in such a rush. Do you really think anything else in your schedule is more important? Give Him a few minutes. Quiet your mind and open your heart. He’ll start talking as soon as he knows you’re ready to listen. And don’t get all spooky about the idea of God talking to you. There won’t be any lightning bolts or trumpets (if there are let me know). That’s why it’s called “a still small voice,” so people won’t freak out when they hear it. It’s the Holy Spirit. He’s supposed to be living inside you when you give your heart to God. You hear His voice with your mind and heart, not with your ears. That brings us to step number three.
3. Do what He tells you - And He won’t tell you to jump off the roof or leave your wife. If it’s God, whatever He says will agree with His Word. If it goes against what’s written in the Bible, you’d better go back to step number one.
God made a deal with me a few years back, when I was finally ready to do what He said. He let me know the general direction He was taking me and He lets me know every day what He wants me to do. Both of these things I know unequivocally. There’s no doubt, no question in my mind. In the beginning He had to prove it to me with regular and miraculous “coincidences” all piling up in His favor. After a while I got the hang of it and just learned to trust Him for these two things. I have no clue where I’ll wind up or what I’ll be doing six months from now. But I know exactly which direction I’m pointed and what I’m supposed to being doing today. The system works pretty well.
Like I said, it’s a deal God made with me. I don’t know if He does that for everybody. Some people have a lot more faith and probably don’t need the constant reassurance. God knows what I’m capable of and so He does it this way with me. Whatever method He uses to guide you, He’ll tailor it to fit you and you’ll know it’s Him.
So, to the friend who wrote the letter, if you’re still listening, try this. If you’re not the guy who wrote the letter but you’re listening anyway, feel free to try it too. If you want to know your purpose in life:
1. Ask God
2. Listen to what He tells you
3. Do it.
Sounds almost too simple doesn’t it?
Purpose News
A new feature you’ll see on our www.gotpotential.org website will be some free resources, including audio teaching on MP3 and e-booklets for free download. You should see the first of these popping up on the website by next week’s letter.
Until then, God bless you and keep you.
In Him,
Steve Spillman
I’m back - after three weeks, not two like I promised. Sorry about that. Two weeks out of telephone and internet communication stirs up a real backlog. Fishing in the Canadian wilderness was awesome. Spending one on one time with our grandson Chase was better. Thanks for your patience.
Welcome to our fourth installment of the Purpose Weekly letter. Purpose Weekly is sent to your e-mail box weekly. There is no subscription fee. If you want to receive Purpose Weekly free via e-mail just go to http://www.gotpotential.org/ and sign up. Purpose Weekly is a publication of True Potential Publishing. Enjoy the articles below and remember to visit http://www.gotpotential.org/ to read more or to access back issues of True Potential e-magazine.
Purpose
August 23, 2007
The weekly newsletter of True Potential Publishing
Faith
I don’t have cable TV or a satellite dish. Several years ago I came to the conclusion that it was pointless to pay fifty dollars a month for two-hundred channels and still find nothing worthwhile to watch on TV. I cancelled the satellite subscription.
We live out in the sticks so our “air” TV reception isn’t so good. I never bothered putting up a TV antenna so we were able to receive only one channel, a major network, since the satellite was pulled. I figured that if there was nothing to watch on a TV with two hundred channels, it would be just as easy to watch it on a TV with one channel. If the end of the world came and the one network we could watch didn’t broadcast it, we would miss it entirely.
Sometime last year I picked up a second hand rooftop antenna at a garage sale. A few weeks ago I finally got around to putting it up. I’m proud to announce that the Spillman family now receives the same network channel we’ve always had, the other two major networks (poorly), public television (pretty good), and the local Christian station.
I’ve never been a fan of Christian TV. Most of it is just too icky for me. I never could get past all the big hair and crying and self-serving money-begging in the name of God. It hurt my heart, so I didn’t watch it.
Now I have a confession to make. I’ve been sneaking some peeks lately. A lot of the icky stuff is still there, probably more than before, but now some good stuff gets through. I don’t know if Christian TV has changed or if it’s me that’s changed. All I know is that in the midst of all the icky stuff, some good stuff gets through.
With that defense noted, I’ll get back to the icky stuff. I was watching a talk show on the Christian TV channel. It was really just a dialog between two guys, sitting at a table, drinking coffee; the set was fixed up to look like someone’s kitchen, complete with big picture window.
One of the guys was a famous “faith” teacher. His guest was a businessman and they were discussing “faith.” How God has all this great stuff for us and how we can have anything we want if we just believe we can get it and say the right words. The “faith” expert kept saying that “faith” wasn’t about getting money. He kept saying that “faith” was about way more than just money and that getting rich was only a minor benefit, kind of a side-effect of having “faith.”
But something about the guy just wasn’t ringing true. Even though he kept saying that “faith” wasn’t about money, you could see that everything about the guy was saying that he believed “faith” really was about the money. Because he had “faith” God gave him a big car and a big house and a private jet and a real expensive gold watch - but those were just side-effects; having “faith” was way more important that all that stuff.
It made me wonder … even though “faith” wasn’t about the money … if the guy suddenly lost his TV show, his bank account, his house, his car, his private jet and his gold watch, if he would still be telling folks about “faith”?
That got me thinking about what “faith” might mean from God’s point of view. After all, when we talk about “faith” we’re talking about an interaction with God, right? And if having “faith” in God means that we’re believing or trusting in something we don’t quite understand but He does, then we should probably get His point of view on what “faith” means before we start to ponder about the things “faith” gets us.
The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to Hebrews (Jews) who had become Christians and part of it was dedicated to the topic of faith. He knew the Jews would understand what he was saying about faith because he used their famous fore-fathers as examples.
In the beginning of his section on faith (if you want to follow along, it’s in the New Testament book of Hebrews, chapter eleven), he gives his readers a definition of what faith is: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” According to Paul, faith is being positive about receiving something we’ve been promised, without any physical proof that we’re actually going to get it.
That part seemed to be in line with what the “faith” expert on TV was saying. He got all his stuff by believing that he would get stuff because God promised it to him.
Then Paul went on to show how all the famous Jewish patriarchs demonstrated faith in what they did and how they pleased God by their actions. But a couple of things really struck me about the people Paul had listed as the heroes of faith.
The first was that they didn’t seem to be getting any big pay-off from their faith. They weren’t getting rich and they never made the move to easy street. It’s like these guys were always in trouble with the authorities or on the brink of some great calamity. In their stories, God always prevailed miraculously in the end, but it wasn’t like these guys were living at the country club during the process.
The second thing I noticed was that none of these heroes of faith seemed to be professing positive faith talk or claiming good stuff into existence. They just seemed to be doing something God told them to do.
And most of what God was telling them to do wasn’t some great glorious task involving a well-paying job. Most of it was dirty and dangerous work; a lot of them were killed in the process. And all of it went against the grain of whoever was in charge at the time. It seemed like being a faith hero in the old days wasn’t a very popular job.
Then Paul said something that really shook me up. “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised ….”
You obey God, you live by faith, and then you die. What kind of pay-off is that!? This wasn’t jibing at all with what the “faith” expert on TV was saying. Even though the money was only a minor part of the “faith” life, according to the TV guy, it was a pretty darned important part.
What happened to these faith heroes Paul was talking about? These guys were supposed to be the examples of how faith works. How come they all died without getting the big pay-off?
Then I found something else Paul said about the faith heroes of old. It was right after he said that they all died without ever getting what they were promised.
… they only saw [the promises] and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
Wow. I finally saw it. The big pay-off. It wasn’t about the money or cars or houses or private jets. It wasn’t about anything on earth. There wasn’t anything on earth good enough as a reward for having faith.
Those guys who Paul wrote about knew they were just passing through. Their real home wasn’t here and the stuff here didn’t really matter compared to the stuff waiting for them in their real home. The pay-off was ahead of them.
What earthly pay-off could possibly equal God not being ashamed to call Himself your God and Personally preparing a city for you to spend forever in?
What I got out of my lesson on faith is that having faith isn’t about expecting something back in return, not in this life anyway. I also got that faith isn’t “confessing” anything; saying the right words or not saying the wrong words. And faith certainly isn’t about sending “seed money” to some TV preacher. Keep your money, the guy’s a crook. He’ll have his own row to hoe on the other side of this life.
Faith is about obeying. Obeying God by doing the thing He told you to do. Knowing in your heart that God is really real and that He cares for you personally and that obeying Him will make your life worth living – without any physical evidence that all of that is true.
The thing God wants you to do may seem unpleasant at times and it will probably go against the grain of what folks around you expect of you. Doing what God wants you to do isn’t very popular most of the time.
There’s a pretty good chance that the job God has given you to do is way beyond your ability to do it. That’s one of the cool things. It proves that God gave it to you; there’s no way you can accomplish it without His regular involvement.
Living by faith, obeying God even though you can’t see the outcome, is really core to understanding your purpose and true potential in this life. You are here according to God’s plan and purpose. He has something He wants you to do for Him. For His glory. That’s your purpose. That’s why He created you. Living up to your full potential, your true potential, involves getting that purpose accomplished.
If good stuff comes your way in this life, more power to you. God loves you and He wants the best for you in this life and the next. But if listening to God and obeying Him brings a little pain and heartache, don’t sweat it and don’t turn back. Real faith means keeping to the task at hand even when there’s no evidence that things will ever get any better.
Besides, you’re in good company. Paul called all those faith heroes of old “a great cloud of witnesses.” They’ve been through the same stuff you’ll go through, they’re watching from above, cheering you on, and they’re saving a place for you.
Next Week…
We’ll be back next week with another issue. I hope by then to have our blog set up so we can receive and respond to reader comments and contributions in forum environment. In the mean time, if you have a question or comment just drop me an e-mail. We’ve received a lot of messages from you already, so far all positive (thanks). If there is anything specific you want to see covered regarding our purpose and potential, let me know. Until then, God bless you and keep you.
In Him,
Steve Spillman
Welcome to our fourth installment of the Purpose Weekly letter. Purpose Weekly is sent to your e-mail box weekly. There is no subscription fee. If you want to receive Purpose Weekly free via e-mail just go to http://www.gotpotential.org/ and sign up. Purpose Weekly is a publication of True Potential Publishing. Enjoy the articles below and remember to visit http://www.gotpotential.org/ to read more or to access back issues of True Potential e-magazine.
Purpose
August 23, 2007
The weekly newsletter of True Potential Publishing
Faith
I don’t have cable TV or a satellite dish. Several years ago I came to the conclusion that it was pointless to pay fifty dollars a month for two-hundred channels and still find nothing worthwhile to watch on TV. I cancelled the satellite subscription.
We live out in the sticks so our “air” TV reception isn’t so good. I never bothered putting up a TV antenna so we were able to receive only one channel, a major network, since the satellite was pulled. I figured that if there was nothing to watch on a TV with two hundred channels, it would be just as easy to watch it on a TV with one channel. If the end of the world came and the one network we could watch didn’t broadcast it, we would miss it entirely.
Sometime last year I picked up a second hand rooftop antenna at a garage sale. A few weeks ago I finally got around to putting it up. I’m proud to announce that the Spillman family now receives the same network channel we’ve always had, the other two major networks (poorly), public television (pretty good), and the local Christian station.
I’ve never been a fan of Christian TV. Most of it is just too icky for me. I never could get past all the big hair and crying and self-serving money-begging in the name of God. It hurt my heart, so I didn’t watch it.
Now I have a confession to make. I’ve been sneaking some peeks lately. A lot of the icky stuff is still there, probably more than before, but now some good stuff gets through. I don’t know if Christian TV has changed or if it’s me that’s changed. All I know is that in the midst of all the icky stuff, some good stuff gets through.
With that defense noted, I’ll get back to the icky stuff. I was watching a talk show on the Christian TV channel. It was really just a dialog between two guys, sitting at a table, drinking coffee; the set was fixed up to look like someone’s kitchen, complete with big picture window.
One of the guys was a famous “faith” teacher. His guest was a businessman and they were discussing “faith.” How God has all this great stuff for us and how we can have anything we want if we just believe we can get it and say the right words. The “faith” expert kept saying that “faith” wasn’t about getting money. He kept saying that “faith” was about way more than just money and that getting rich was only a minor benefit, kind of a side-effect of having “faith.”
But something about the guy just wasn’t ringing true. Even though he kept saying that “faith” wasn’t about money, you could see that everything about the guy was saying that he believed “faith” really was about the money. Because he had “faith” God gave him a big car and a big house and a private jet and a real expensive gold watch - but those were just side-effects; having “faith” was way more important that all that stuff.
It made me wonder … even though “faith” wasn’t about the money … if the guy suddenly lost his TV show, his bank account, his house, his car, his private jet and his gold watch, if he would still be telling folks about “faith”?
That got me thinking about what “faith” might mean from God’s point of view. After all, when we talk about “faith” we’re talking about an interaction with God, right? And if having “faith” in God means that we’re believing or trusting in something we don’t quite understand but He does, then we should probably get His point of view on what “faith” means before we start to ponder about the things “faith” gets us.
The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to Hebrews (Jews) who had become Christians and part of it was dedicated to the topic of faith. He knew the Jews would understand what he was saying about faith because he used their famous fore-fathers as examples.
In the beginning of his section on faith (if you want to follow along, it’s in the New Testament book of Hebrews, chapter eleven), he gives his readers a definition of what faith is: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” According to Paul, faith is being positive about receiving something we’ve been promised, without any physical proof that we’re actually going to get it.
That part seemed to be in line with what the “faith” expert on TV was saying. He got all his stuff by believing that he would get stuff because God promised it to him.
Then Paul went on to show how all the famous Jewish patriarchs demonstrated faith in what they did and how they pleased God by their actions. But a couple of things really struck me about the people Paul had listed as the heroes of faith.
The first was that they didn’t seem to be getting any big pay-off from their faith. They weren’t getting rich and they never made the move to easy street. It’s like these guys were always in trouble with the authorities or on the brink of some great calamity. In their stories, God always prevailed miraculously in the end, but it wasn’t like these guys were living at the country club during the process.
The second thing I noticed was that none of these heroes of faith seemed to be professing positive faith talk or claiming good stuff into existence. They just seemed to be doing something God told them to do.
And most of what God was telling them to do wasn’t some great glorious task involving a well-paying job. Most of it was dirty and dangerous work; a lot of them were killed in the process. And all of it went against the grain of whoever was in charge at the time. It seemed like being a faith hero in the old days wasn’t a very popular job.
Then Paul said something that really shook me up. “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised ….”
You obey God, you live by faith, and then you die. What kind of pay-off is that!? This wasn’t jibing at all with what the “faith” expert on TV was saying. Even though the money was only a minor part of the “faith” life, according to the TV guy, it was a pretty darned important part.
What happened to these faith heroes Paul was talking about? These guys were supposed to be the examples of how faith works. How come they all died without getting the big pay-off?
Then I found something else Paul said about the faith heroes of old. It was right after he said that they all died without ever getting what they were promised.
… they only saw [the promises] and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
Wow. I finally saw it. The big pay-off. It wasn’t about the money or cars or houses or private jets. It wasn’t about anything on earth. There wasn’t anything on earth good enough as a reward for having faith.
Those guys who Paul wrote about knew they were just passing through. Their real home wasn’t here and the stuff here didn’t really matter compared to the stuff waiting for them in their real home. The pay-off was ahead of them.
What earthly pay-off could possibly equal God not being ashamed to call Himself your God and Personally preparing a city for you to spend forever in?
What I got out of my lesson on faith is that having faith isn’t about expecting something back in return, not in this life anyway. I also got that faith isn’t “confessing” anything; saying the right words or not saying the wrong words. And faith certainly isn’t about sending “seed money” to some TV preacher. Keep your money, the guy’s a crook. He’ll have his own row to hoe on the other side of this life.
Faith is about obeying. Obeying God by doing the thing He told you to do. Knowing in your heart that God is really real and that He cares for you personally and that obeying Him will make your life worth living – without any physical evidence that all of that is true.
The thing God wants you to do may seem unpleasant at times and it will probably go against the grain of what folks around you expect of you. Doing what God wants you to do isn’t very popular most of the time.
There’s a pretty good chance that the job God has given you to do is way beyond your ability to do it. That’s one of the cool things. It proves that God gave it to you; there’s no way you can accomplish it without His regular involvement.
Living by faith, obeying God even though you can’t see the outcome, is really core to understanding your purpose and true potential in this life. You are here according to God’s plan and purpose. He has something He wants you to do for Him. For His glory. That’s your purpose. That’s why He created you. Living up to your full potential, your true potential, involves getting that purpose accomplished.
If good stuff comes your way in this life, more power to you. God loves you and He wants the best for you in this life and the next. But if listening to God and obeying Him brings a little pain and heartache, don’t sweat it and don’t turn back. Real faith means keeping to the task at hand even when there’s no evidence that things will ever get any better.
Besides, you’re in good company. Paul called all those faith heroes of old “a great cloud of witnesses.” They’ve been through the same stuff you’ll go through, they’re watching from above, cheering you on, and they’re saving a place for you.
Next Week…
We’ll be back next week with another issue. I hope by then to have our blog set up so we can receive and respond to reader comments and contributions in forum environment. In the mean time, if you have a question or comment just drop me an e-mail. We’ve received a lot of messages from you already, so far all positive (thanks). If there is anything specific you want to see covered regarding our purpose and potential, let me know. Until then, God bless you and keep you.
In Him,
Steve Spillman
Welcome to our third installment of the Purpose Weekly letter. Purpose Weekly is sent to your e-mail box weekly. There is no subscription fee. If you want to receive Purpose Weekly free via e-mail just go to http://www.gotpotential.org/ and sign up. Purpose Weekly is a publication of True Potential Publishing.Enjoy the articles below and remember to visit http://www.gotpotential.org/ to read more or to access back issues of True Potential e-magazine.
Last week’s letter covered two basics for understanding your true potential. The first is to understand that the universe is no accident. Everything in it was created on purpose, including you.
The second thing we discussed last week was that you are part of a much bigger plan. God knew when you would show up on this planet and He planned a special purpose for you long before you ever arrived here.
This week is about taking the single most important step to realizing your true potential and fulfilling your purpose in life. Without this, everything else is meaningless. With this, nothing in this world can do you any permanent harm or prevent you from achieving your purpose.
Purpose
August 3, 2007
The weekly newsletter of True Potential Publishing
The Light of the World
“In him was life, and that life was the light of men. (John 3: 4).
We’ve been talking about God’s plan and purpose for the universe and His plan and purpose for you and me as individuals. We discussed how God has purposed us from the very beginning. He knew us before we were ever born and knew exactly when we would be here.
There was something else God purposed from the beginning; that the Light of the world should, at a specific moment in time, come to this earth and live among men and die on their behalf.
This Light was with God in the very beginning when He spoke the universe into existence. As a matter of fact, the Apostle John called this Light the Word; as if it were the Light itself that spoke things into existence. John said that the Word was present at the beginning when all things were made and that there wasn’t anything made that the Word didn’t participate in.
Jesus is the one John called the Word and the Light. Jesus is called a lot of things in John’s book. He’s called “The lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” He’s also called God’s “one and only son.”
When you’re watching football on TV, do you ever see some guy holding a cardboard sign that says, JOHN 3:16? Holding a cardboard sign with JOHN 3:16 painted on it at a football game may sound a little wacky, but that guy was doing it for a reason. He’s trying, in his way, to tell people that God sent his “one and only son” to save the world.
Here’s John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
That’s God’s plan for all man, including you and me; that we have eternal life. God has a unique purpose for each of us, something He wants us to do. But without this first part of God’s plan we can’t fulfill any of the rest of His purpose for us.
The term “born again” has been used so much that it has become a part of the common language. People refer to Christians as born-agains, most times in a derogatory sense. It has become a tag by which the world identifies practicing Christians. We have even made a distinction between “Christians” and “born-again Christians.”
A lot of folks, if asked, “Are you a Christian?” would say, “Sure I’m a Christian. I go to church, I’m an American, I give to the Red Cross and just last year I spent a weekend helping build a house with Habitat for Humanity.”
But if those same folks were asked, “Are you a born-again Christian?” They would start a nervous back-pedal.
Being born-again smacks of religious fanaticism. Born-agains seem to be different from everyone else, a little out there; not quite accepted by polite society.
They might ask, “Is this whole born-again thing really necessary? I believe in God, I mean I believe He’s up there somewhere, looking down on us occasionally. I go to church … well, I don’t go that much, but I belong to one. I try to do good things and help people. You know - leave the world a little bit better than I found it. I vote Republican. Isn’t that enough? I mean how much can really be expected of me? I don’t really know why I shouldn’t go to Heaven; I’m doing all the right things, right?”
It’s funny. The reasoning above sounds kind of 21st century doesn’t it? Sounds like the kind of thing you would hear in your neighborhood from your friends or coworkers, maybe even something you might have said.
Well, the reasoning isn’t as 21st century as you might think. It’s been around for a long time.
Two thousand years ago a man named Nicodemus came to visit Jesus (he came at night so his friends wouldn’t see him talking to Jesus). He said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
Jesus answered him by saying, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
That’s where the term “born-again” comes from.
Like most folks, Nicodemus, didn’t understand. “How can a man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”
But that’s not the kind of birth Jesus was talking about. Jesus explained. “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”
What Jesus meant is that it wasn’t good enough for a man was born into this world only; he has to be born into another world, one from above, if he is to see the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus, like so many folks today, was a good man. He was a religious man and a leader in the synagogue. He gave his money to the temple, he did good deeds, he obeyed the Law, he pretty much did everything right. Why then, was Jesus telling this good man that he had to do something else, something as incomprehensible as being born-again, to get into heaven?
I worked with a guy once who was a lot like Nicodemus. He was a deacon in his church, he taught Sunday school, he was always helping with the youth group, he was a good neighbor, he had a nice wife and great kids, he was a responsible employee; pretty much a great guy all around.
He knew I was a Christian so he shared his church life with me on occasion. He told me that he really liked his church, loved helping the kids and doing good things for those less fortunate; it made him feel great. He admitted that he didn’t know about “this whole born-again thing, but all my good deeds have got to count for something, right?”
This guy was just like Nicodemus, doing all the right things, but missing the necessary thing.
We can’t fulfill our purpose; we can’t live up to our true potential unless we are born-again. It’s impossible.
When God created the first man, Adam, he made him from the ground, the materials of this earth. Then God actually breathed His Spirit into the man to make him come alive. Adam was born (created) of the earth and he was born (given life) of the Spirit. Adam was alive in the flesh and in the Spirit.
Then something went terribly wrong. Adam and his wife, Eve did the only thing they weren’t allowed to do. They ate fruit from a tree that would let them know the difference between good and evil.
This action, according to the one who talked them into it, would put them on a par with God. They would know good from evil, be able to judge it for themselves and make their own decisions. They would be able to shape their own destiny, determine their own purpose. And they were right. Their own destiny, however, was tragic.
By choosing for themselves what God had reserved for Himself, part of them died. They lost the Spirit life that God had breathed into them; the connection that allowed them to be a part of God’s kingdom and His plan. With that part of them dead, they were forever doomed to live according to their own plans and purpose.
God knew ahead of time what the fate of this first man would be. He knew that all of the man’s offspring would suffer the same consequence. When they came into the world they would be born only of the earth, only of man. They would not be born with the Spirit life that was breathed into Adam because Adam had lost it, he didn’t have it to give.
That is why Jesus, God’s Son, the One who was there with God in the beginning, who was a part of speaking all things into existence, came to earth. He came to give man back that Spirit life. He came to set right that which had gone so wrong with Adam back in the Garden.
That’s what He was trying to explain to Nicodemus. The only way to see God’s kingdom, to participate in His plan, to fulfill His destiny for you, is to get back that Spirit life, to be born again.
Being born-again isn’t hard. Jesus has already done all of the work. All you have to do is what Jesus told Nicodemus to do, believe in Him. Believe that Jesus really is God’s Son, that He is the Light of the world and that He came to give that Spirit life, back to you.
If you’re already born-again, you’ve been through this and you know it. You felt the Spirit life come into you then and you can feel it now.
If you haven’t been born-again you know it too. It doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that you go to church or you’re a good person, or you give to the poor.
It also doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that you’re a rotten person and you’ve done some bad or stupid things in the past. There isn’t anything you’ve done that being born-again won’t wash away.
According to God, unless you’re born-again, you’re never good enough to be a part of His kingdom and once you have been born-again, nothing you’ve ever done will prevent you from being a part of His kingdom.
Here’s how to be born-again; it’s pretty easy. Stop what you’re doing and talk to God. If it helps, close your eyes, but it’s really not necessary. God will hear you whether you have your eyes opened or closed.
Tell Him, “God, I believe your Son Jesus is the Light of the world. I believe that he came to breathe that Spirit life back into me. I accept what He did for me and I want to be a part of the plan that You have for me.”
That’s it! No Hail Marys. No walking over broken glass. Nothing else. The gift of eternal life is free. You don’t have to do anything but receive it.
If you did ask God to breathe that Spirit life back into you, drop me a note. I’d really like to hear about it and tell other folks what happened. Don’t worry, I won’t use your name or anything, what you did was between you and God. But I do want to hear about it. It’s the most important thing you’ve ever done and somebody needs to know!
Gone Fishing. Back in Two weeks.
We’ll be up in the north woods next week, getting mosquito bit and hopefully eating fresh fish. But Purpose Weekly will be back on August 17th and we’ll get into how to start really living our purpose.
Until then, God Bless us.
The second thing we discussed last week was that you are part of a much bigger plan. God knew when you would show up on this planet and He planned a special purpose for you long before you ever arrived here.
This week is about taking the single most important step to realizing your true potential and fulfilling your purpose in life. Without this, everything else is meaningless. With this, nothing in this world can do you any permanent harm or prevent you from achieving your purpose.
Purpose
August 3, 2007
The weekly newsletter of True Potential Publishing
The Light of the World
“In him was life, and that life was the light of men. (John 3: 4).
We’ve been talking about God’s plan and purpose for the universe and His plan and purpose for you and me as individuals. We discussed how God has purposed us from the very beginning. He knew us before we were ever born and knew exactly when we would be here.
There was something else God purposed from the beginning; that the Light of the world should, at a specific moment in time, come to this earth and live among men and die on their behalf.
This Light was with God in the very beginning when He spoke the universe into existence. As a matter of fact, the Apostle John called this Light the Word; as if it were the Light itself that spoke things into existence. John said that the Word was present at the beginning when all things were made and that there wasn’t anything made that the Word didn’t participate in.
Jesus is the one John called the Word and the Light. Jesus is called a lot of things in John’s book. He’s called “The lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” He’s also called God’s “one and only son.”
When you’re watching football on TV, do you ever see some guy holding a cardboard sign that says, JOHN 3:16? Holding a cardboard sign with JOHN 3:16 painted on it at a football game may sound a little wacky, but that guy was doing it for a reason. He’s trying, in his way, to tell people that God sent his “one and only son” to save the world.
Here’s John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
That’s God’s plan for all man, including you and me; that we have eternal life. God has a unique purpose for each of us, something He wants us to do. But without this first part of God’s plan we can’t fulfill any of the rest of His purpose for us.
The term “born again” has been used so much that it has become a part of the common language. People refer to Christians as born-agains, most times in a derogatory sense. It has become a tag by which the world identifies practicing Christians. We have even made a distinction between “Christians” and “born-again Christians.”
A lot of folks, if asked, “Are you a Christian?” would say, “Sure I’m a Christian. I go to church, I’m an American, I give to the Red Cross and just last year I spent a weekend helping build a house with Habitat for Humanity.”
But if those same folks were asked, “Are you a born-again Christian?” They would start a nervous back-pedal.
Being born-again smacks of religious fanaticism. Born-agains seem to be different from everyone else, a little out there; not quite accepted by polite society.
They might ask, “Is this whole born-again thing really necessary? I believe in God, I mean I believe He’s up there somewhere, looking down on us occasionally. I go to church … well, I don’t go that much, but I belong to one. I try to do good things and help people. You know - leave the world a little bit better than I found it. I vote Republican. Isn’t that enough? I mean how much can really be expected of me? I don’t really know why I shouldn’t go to Heaven; I’m doing all the right things, right?”
It’s funny. The reasoning above sounds kind of 21st century doesn’t it? Sounds like the kind of thing you would hear in your neighborhood from your friends or coworkers, maybe even something you might have said.
Well, the reasoning isn’t as 21st century as you might think. It’s been around for a long time.
Two thousand years ago a man named Nicodemus came to visit Jesus (he came at night so his friends wouldn’t see him talking to Jesus). He said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
Jesus answered him by saying, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
That’s where the term “born-again” comes from.
Like most folks, Nicodemus, didn’t understand. “How can a man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”
But that’s not the kind of birth Jesus was talking about. Jesus explained. “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”
What Jesus meant is that it wasn’t good enough for a man was born into this world only; he has to be born into another world, one from above, if he is to see the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus, like so many folks today, was a good man. He was a religious man and a leader in the synagogue. He gave his money to the temple, he did good deeds, he obeyed the Law, he pretty much did everything right. Why then, was Jesus telling this good man that he had to do something else, something as incomprehensible as being born-again, to get into heaven?
I worked with a guy once who was a lot like Nicodemus. He was a deacon in his church, he taught Sunday school, he was always helping with the youth group, he was a good neighbor, he had a nice wife and great kids, he was a responsible employee; pretty much a great guy all around.
He knew I was a Christian so he shared his church life with me on occasion. He told me that he really liked his church, loved helping the kids and doing good things for those less fortunate; it made him feel great. He admitted that he didn’t know about “this whole born-again thing, but all my good deeds have got to count for something, right?”
This guy was just like Nicodemus, doing all the right things, but missing the necessary thing.
We can’t fulfill our purpose; we can’t live up to our true potential unless we are born-again. It’s impossible.
When God created the first man, Adam, he made him from the ground, the materials of this earth. Then God actually breathed His Spirit into the man to make him come alive. Adam was born (created) of the earth and he was born (given life) of the Spirit. Adam was alive in the flesh and in the Spirit.
Then something went terribly wrong. Adam and his wife, Eve did the only thing they weren’t allowed to do. They ate fruit from a tree that would let them know the difference between good and evil.
This action, according to the one who talked them into it, would put them on a par with God. They would know good from evil, be able to judge it for themselves and make their own decisions. They would be able to shape their own destiny, determine their own purpose. And they were right. Their own destiny, however, was tragic.
By choosing for themselves what God had reserved for Himself, part of them died. They lost the Spirit life that God had breathed into them; the connection that allowed them to be a part of God’s kingdom and His plan. With that part of them dead, they were forever doomed to live according to their own plans and purpose.
God knew ahead of time what the fate of this first man would be. He knew that all of the man’s offspring would suffer the same consequence. When they came into the world they would be born only of the earth, only of man. They would not be born with the Spirit life that was breathed into Adam because Adam had lost it, he didn’t have it to give.
That is why Jesus, God’s Son, the One who was there with God in the beginning, who was a part of speaking all things into existence, came to earth. He came to give man back that Spirit life. He came to set right that which had gone so wrong with Adam back in the Garden.
That’s what He was trying to explain to Nicodemus. The only way to see God’s kingdom, to participate in His plan, to fulfill His destiny for you, is to get back that Spirit life, to be born again.
Being born-again isn’t hard. Jesus has already done all of the work. All you have to do is what Jesus told Nicodemus to do, believe in Him. Believe that Jesus really is God’s Son, that He is the Light of the world and that He came to give that Spirit life, back to you.
If you’re already born-again, you’ve been through this and you know it. You felt the Spirit life come into you then and you can feel it now.
If you haven’t been born-again you know it too. It doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that you go to church or you’re a good person, or you give to the poor.
It also doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that you’re a rotten person and you’ve done some bad or stupid things in the past. There isn’t anything you’ve done that being born-again won’t wash away.
According to God, unless you’re born-again, you’re never good enough to be a part of His kingdom and once you have been born-again, nothing you’ve ever done will prevent you from being a part of His kingdom.
Here’s how to be born-again; it’s pretty easy. Stop what you’re doing and talk to God. If it helps, close your eyes, but it’s really not necessary. God will hear you whether you have your eyes opened or closed.
Tell Him, “God, I believe your Son Jesus is the Light of the world. I believe that he came to breathe that Spirit life back into me. I accept what He did for me and I want to be a part of the plan that You have for me.”
That’s it! No Hail Marys. No walking over broken glass. Nothing else. The gift of eternal life is free. You don’t have to do anything but receive it.
If you did ask God to breathe that Spirit life back into you, drop me a note. I’d really like to hear about it and tell other folks what happened. Don’t worry, I won’t use your name or anything, what you did was between you and God. But I do want to hear about it. It’s the most important thing you’ve ever done and somebody needs to know!
Gone Fishing. Back in Two weeks.
We’ll be up in the north woods next week, getting mosquito bit and hopefully eating fresh fish. But Purpose Weekly will be back on August 17th and we’ll get into how to start really living our purpose.
Until then, God Bless us.
Welcome back! I’m glad you’ve stayed with us for another week and our second installment of the Purpose weekly letter. Purpose is sent to your e-mail box weekly. If you would like to receive Purpose Weekly for free delivered to your e-mail address, just go to www.gotpotential.com and sign up! Purpose Weekly is a publication of True Potential Publishing.
Last week we talked about your purpose, the one God Himself chose for you before you were conceived. We also talked a little about what your purpose isn’t. It isn’t collecting stuff and consuming stuff. God had something much more important in mind for your life.
If you didn’t receive last week’s letter or if it’s lost somewhere in e-mail oblivion, you can go to www.gotpotential.org any time and read or print archived letters and back issues of True Potential Magazine.
We received some great comments from last week’s letter. Thank you to all who dropped us a note.
The best news in the world is that God has a plan for your life and that you were born to do wonderful things, but without providing any practical application or a roadmap of how to get there, this life changing news becomes nothing more than a platitude.
This week we’ll begin the “how-to” side of understanding true potential and our real purpose in life. If this week’s letter sounds like I’m covering old ground to some of you, remember that a lot of folks may have never really considered some of the reasons we believe what we believe and why. If you already know the source of purpose and meaning in the universe, consider this week’s letter a review. Since each of us may be at different places along life’s path, we’ll start at the beginning.
Purpose Weekly
July 26, 2007
The weekly newsletter of True Potential Publishing
1. The Universe is no Accident
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1
We have to approach this whole idea of purpose and true potential from a perspective that such things as purpose and truth exist in the universe. If the universe and everything in it is nothing more than a cosmic accident, then purpose and truth don’t exist and our existence here is meaningless.
If the universe is the result of a random explosion and earth is the result of atoms blindly coalescing into solid matter and man is the result of a chance lightning strike onto a pond of warm scum (I’m not kidding, this is the current scientific viewpoint of our origins) then the universe and everything in it is an accident; that includes you and me. There is no meaning, no purpose in an accident. There is no reason to believe in ideas such as truth, or right and wrong. These concepts don’t exist in an accident. Under this scenario, you have as much meaning and purpose as a mushroom, or a caterpillar, or Mount Kilimanjaro, or Pluto. In an accidental cosmos everything it contains is accident as well.
The first thing we have to realize is that the universe isn’t an accident. There was something or Someone behind its creation. What philosophers call a “first cause.” What a lot of us call “God.” What some scientist don’t like to call anything at all.
Scientists who study the origins of the universe admit that time and space had to have a beginning and both had to begin at the same time; what they call the Big Bang. They can’t admit that God literally “spoke” time and space into existence. But they will admit that at the moment of the Big Bang, time didn’t exist and all matter was infinitesimally small and infinitely dense.
This beginning moment poses a real problem for the scientists. They believe that the universe had a beginning and that they can trace that beginning down to a specific point. They postulate that the universe (time and space) came into existence at a certain moment and that the place where the stuff to make up the universe was stored was so tiny and so dense as to be immeasurable (those who don’t believe that God could “speak” something into existence, hold that everything comes from something; nothing gets created out of nothing).
In order for this theory to work, all the matter in the universe today had to be to compressed into space that’s so small that it couldn’t be measured or observed. Of course science says that something exists only in that it can be measured or observed. This is why God, according to these scientists, can’t exist; He can’t be measured or observed. However, they insist, the universe, at its beginning point was infinitesimally small and infinitely dense; it couldn’t be measured or observed. If you ask what happened before that beginning moment or where the infinitesimally small and infinitely dense stuff of the universe was stored, their reply is, “Since time and space can’t be measured or observed before the Big Bang, it’s irrelevant, so we need not think about it.” Go figure.
Somehow it’s easier to swallow this ridiculous rationalization than to consider that God “spoke” the universe into existence.
Another way we know that our existence isn’t just the result of a cosmic accident and that some power greater than we can measure or observe exists, is that we know. We know. The belief is hardwired in us. From the beginning of man’s history, he has known that something greater than himself exists. He has always known that God exists. If man were only a biological accident, the result of millions of years of blind evolution, he wouldn’t have a need for God or an inborn sense of morality. These concepts wouldn’t exist in the mind of man if he were a biological accident.
The first step in understanding our true potential is to know who we are and who God is. We are the creation of an infinitely purposeful and powerful God. When He spoke the universe into existence he had a purpose for it. He knew the beginning, the ending and everything in-between in advance. He accounted for every detail of creation in His purpose. You and I are in the details. What’s more important, He created man in His own image. He patterned man after Himself, after His example. God who is ultimately purposeful, made man to be purposeful. He included man as an integral part of His plan and purpose for the universe.
2. You’re Part of a Much Bigger Plan
The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. Proverbs16:4 ESV
God’s plan and purpose for the universe includes His plan and purpose for you and me personally. As individuals, you and I play our unique roles, our specific purpose in part of a much, much larger plan.
To illustrate how each of us has a unique purpose that is really part of a single great purpose, let’s use the modern integrated circuit as an analogy.
Your home or office computer’s “brain” is an integrated circuit called the Central Processing Unit (CPU). It’s about the size of a matchbook and contains hundreds of millions of individual circuits. The quantity of individual components working in concert in the confines of a processor the size of a matchbook is mind boggling. But it works.
It works because those who created it planned the placement of and orchestrated the purpose of each individual circuit. They had a purpose in mind for the finished CPU and they had a purpose for each component in the CPU. There isn’t a single circuit in those hundreds of millions of circuits of which its designers say, “Boy, I really don’t know what that one’s for. It must have just popped up; it has no real purpose.”
The people who designed the CPU had a purpose in mind when they planned the placement of each component. They had a purpose in mind when they assembled the CPU. More importantly, they had a purpose in mind for the CPU after it was assembled.
The purpose of a particular circuit, its specific function, even though it may be different from the circuit next to it, plays a role in fulfilling the purpose of the CPU. Its specific function may only make up 1/100 millionth of the CPU’s function, but it is integral. Without the function of that individual circuit, the CPU ceases to operate in the way its designers intended.
Your purpose in the universe is like the purpose of that single circuit inside the CPU, but much, much more profound. It’s not just profound in that God thought enough of you to give you a specific purpose, God thought enough of you to include you as an integral part in His purpose for all Creation. He placed you in the world, in your particular time and place to fulfill a specific purpose. That specific purpose is an integral part of a much greater purpose; one that won’t be accomplished as planned unless your specific purpose is accomplished as planned. You are integral to God’s purpose for Creation. …Wow.
Your purpose isn’t yours because you found it or chose it. It was already chosen for you; by the One who designed you and the universe around you. It’s your purpose because you were created to fulfill it; it’s His purpose because He designed it and created you to fulfill it.
That’s why you already instinctively know your purpose, you were created with it; it’s why you were inserted in the place and time you’re in now. That’s also why you can never realize your true potential if you don’t fulfill that purpose; it’s the thing you were designed to do. You weren’t created for anything else. It’s also why you absolutely can’t loose; you’re part of a much bigger plan - an integral part.
Don’t Miss Next Week!
Whatever else happens, don’t miss next week. There’s a part of this plan I haven’t explained yet. It’s the Key; nothing works without it. The CPU in our analogy is an incredible piece of engineering; hundred of millions of individual circuits all working in concert under a single purpose. But the CPU and all of its component parts are useless if the machine isn’t plugged in. The key is connecting the machine to the power. No power no function.
There is a single Key to our function as well; one thing that makes our purpose, the fulfilling of our true potential possible. We’ll cover that next week.
Last week we talked about your purpose, the one God Himself chose for you before you were conceived. We also talked a little about what your purpose isn’t. It isn’t collecting stuff and consuming stuff. God had something much more important in mind for your life.
If you didn’t receive last week’s letter or if it’s lost somewhere in e-mail oblivion, you can go to www.gotpotential.org any time and read or print archived letters and back issues of True Potential Magazine.
We received some great comments from last week’s letter. Thank you to all who dropped us a note.
The best news in the world is that God has a plan for your life and that you were born to do wonderful things, but without providing any practical application or a roadmap of how to get there, this life changing news becomes nothing more than a platitude.
This week we’ll begin the “how-to” side of understanding true potential and our real purpose in life. If this week’s letter sounds like I’m covering old ground to some of you, remember that a lot of folks may have never really considered some of the reasons we believe what we believe and why. If you already know the source of purpose and meaning in the universe, consider this week’s letter a review. Since each of us may be at different places along life’s path, we’ll start at the beginning.
Purpose Weekly
July 26, 2007
The weekly newsletter of True Potential Publishing
1. The Universe is no Accident
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1
We have to approach this whole idea of purpose and true potential from a perspective that such things as purpose and truth exist in the universe. If the universe and everything in it is nothing more than a cosmic accident, then purpose and truth don’t exist and our existence here is meaningless.
If the universe is the result of a random explosion and earth is the result of atoms blindly coalescing into solid matter and man is the result of a chance lightning strike onto a pond of warm scum (I’m not kidding, this is the current scientific viewpoint of our origins) then the universe and everything in it is an accident; that includes you and me. There is no meaning, no purpose in an accident. There is no reason to believe in ideas such as truth, or right and wrong. These concepts don’t exist in an accident. Under this scenario, you have as much meaning and purpose as a mushroom, or a caterpillar, or Mount Kilimanjaro, or Pluto. In an accidental cosmos everything it contains is accident as well.
The first thing we have to realize is that the universe isn’t an accident. There was something or Someone behind its creation. What philosophers call a “first cause.” What a lot of us call “God.” What some scientist don’t like to call anything at all.
Scientists who study the origins of the universe admit that time and space had to have a beginning and both had to begin at the same time; what they call the Big Bang. They can’t admit that God literally “spoke” time and space into existence. But they will admit that at the moment of the Big Bang, time didn’t exist and all matter was infinitesimally small and infinitely dense.
This beginning moment poses a real problem for the scientists. They believe that the universe had a beginning and that they can trace that beginning down to a specific point. They postulate that the universe (time and space) came into existence at a certain moment and that the place where the stuff to make up the universe was stored was so tiny and so dense as to be immeasurable (those who don’t believe that God could “speak” something into existence, hold that everything comes from something; nothing gets created out of nothing).
In order for this theory to work, all the matter in the universe today had to be to compressed into space that’s so small that it couldn’t be measured or observed. Of course science says that something exists only in that it can be measured or observed. This is why God, according to these scientists, can’t exist; He can’t be measured or observed. However, they insist, the universe, at its beginning point was infinitesimally small and infinitely dense; it couldn’t be measured or observed. If you ask what happened before that beginning moment or where the infinitesimally small and infinitely dense stuff of the universe was stored, their reply is, “Since time and space can’t be measured or observed before the Big Bang, it’s irrelevant, so we need not think about it.” Go figure.
Somehow it’s easier to swallow this ridiculous rationalization than to consider that God “spoke” the universe into existence.
Another way we know that our existence isn’t just the result of a cosmic accident and that some power greater than we can measure or observe exists, is that we know. We know. The belief is hardwired in us. From the beginning of man’s history, he has known that something greater than himself exists. He has always known that God exists. If man were only a biological accident, the result of millions of years of blind evolution, he wouldn’t have a need for God or an inborn sense of morality. These concepts wouldn’t exist in the mind of man if he were a biological accident.
The first step in understanding our true potential is to know who we are and who God is. We are the creation of an infinitely purposeful and powerful God. When He spoke the universe into existence he had a purpose for it. He knew the beginning, the ending and everything in-between in advance. He accounted for every detail of creation in His purpose. You and I are in the details. What’s more important, He created man in His own image. He patterned man after Himself, after His example. God who is ultimately purposeful, made man to be purposeful. He included man as an integral part of His plan and purpose for the universe.
2. You’re Part of a Much Bigger Plan
The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. Proverbs16:4 ESV
God’s plan and purpose for the universe includes His plan and purpose for you and me personally. As individuals, you and I play our unique roles, our specific purpose in part of a much, much larger plan.
To illustrate how each of us has a unique purpose that is really part of a single great purpose, let’s use the modern integrated circuit as an analogy.
Your home or office computer’s “brain” is an integrated circuit called the Central Processing Unit (CPU). It’s about the size of a matchbook and contains hundreds of millions of individual circuits. The quantity of individual components working in concert in the confines of a processor the size of a matchbook is mind boggling. But it works.
It works because those who created it planned the placement of and orchestrated the purpose of each individual circuit. They had a purpose in mind for the finished CPU and they had a purpose for each component in the CPU. There isn’t a single circuit in those hundreds of millions of circuits of which its designers say, “Boy, I really don’t know what that one’s for. It must have just popped up; it has no real purpose.”
The people who designed the CPU had a purpose in mind when they planned the placement of each component. They had a purpose in mind when they assembled the CPU. More importantly, they had a purpose in mind for the CPU after it was assembled.
The purpose of a particular circuit, its specific function, even though it may be different from the circuit next to it, plays a role in fulfilling the purpose of the CPU. Its specific function may only make up 1/100 millionth of the CPU’s function, but it is integral. Without the function of that individual circuit, the CPU ceases to operate in the way its designers intended.
Your purpose in the universe is like the purpose of that single circuit inside the CPU, but much, much more profound. It’s not just profound in that God thought enough of you to give you a specific purpose, God thought enough of you to include you as an integral part in His purpose for all Creation. He placed you in the world, in your particular time and place to fulfill a specific purpose. That specific purpose is an integral part of a much greater purpose; one that won’t be accomplished as planned unless your specific purpose is accomplished as planned. You are integral to God’s purpose for Creation. …Wow.
Your purpose isn’t yours because you found it or chose it. It was already chosen for you; by the One who designed you and the universe around you. It’s your purpose because you were created to fulfill it; it’s His purpose because He designed it and created you to fulfill it.
That’s why you already instinctively know your purpose, you were created with it; it’s why you were inserted in the place and time you’re in now. That’s also why you can never realize your true potential if you don’t fulfill that purpose; it’s the thing you were designed to do. You weren’t created for anything else. It’s also why you absolutely can’t loose; you’re part of a much bigger plan - an integral part.
Don’t Miss Next Week!
Whatever else happens, don’t miss next week. There’s a part of this plan I haven’t explained yet. It’s the Key; nothing works without it. The CPU in our analogy is an incredible piece of engineering; hundred of millions of individual circuits all working in concert under a single purpose. But the CPU and all of its component parts are useless if the machine isn’t plugged in. The key is connecting the machine to the power. No power no function.
There is a single Key to our function as well; one thing that makes our purpose, the fulfilling of our true potential possible. We’ll cover that next week.
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Purpose Weekly. This weekly newsletter replaces our monthly True Potential e-magazine. We decided that a shorter, weekly format with a focus on the subject of purpose, namely – your purpose from God’s perspective, would be more useful and relevant than a monthly e-magazine.
Like I said – we decided. I’d like to hear from you. You tell us how the Purpose weekly works for you. What do you think of the articles? Do you agree? Disagree? What do you want to see more of?
Purpose is sent to your e-mail box weekly. There is no subscription fee. If you want to receive Purpose Weekly free via e-mail just go to http://www.gotpotential.org/ and sign up. Purpose Weekly is a publication of True Potential Publishing.
Enjoy the articles below and remember to visit http://www.gotpotential.org/ to read more or to access back issues of True Potential e-magazine.
Purpose Weekly
July 19, 2007
The weekly newsletter of True Potential Publishing
True Potential? What’s that supposed to mean?
You want to be happy. You want to succeed. You want a sense of fulfillment. You want that warm fuzzy feeling that tells you everything’s okay. You’ve got an inkling that your life should somehow mean something, that there should be some purpose to your existence. You want to be happy and you want your life to count – you know that much. How to get there though, you’re not so sure.
When it comes to happiness, success, fulfillment and purpose, it seems like there’s a guru around every corner and on every TV infomercial; ready to show us how we can be more successful, better looking, happier, healthier and richer in as little as five minutes a day – without leaving home. We’ve listened to the spiel, we’ve bought the products and we’ve tried their fool-proof paths to success, happiness, and whiter teeth. We followed the instructions and walked the walk. In the end, we find ourselves about where we started; a little older and a little poorer, but no happier, no more fulfilled.
Even God’s spokesmen are getting in on the success and happiness biz. Whether they promise that you’ll discover your purpose in forty days or experience your best life now, the message is pretty much the same as the guys in the infomercials, but with a religious twist; “Find meaning, get rich and make God happy at the same time!”
So why another happiness/meaning/fulfillment/purpose program? Haven’t we had enough? I agree, adding one more twist to the same old agenda isn’t going to do any of us any good. But what if this message is different? What if it’s about living up to our real potential? Our real purpose?
We’ve all got potential. The self-help gurus have educated us plenty on that. They claim that we have the potential to be or do anything we want. And to a point they’re right – we do have a lot of potential. But potential to be what? Rich? Famous? Happy? Loved?
The truth is, you’ve got the potential to do or be almost anything you want. But how do you know what you want? In the long run, what is it that will bring you true fulfillment? What possible purpose could you serve that would mean more than anything else? Is there such a thing as your highest purpose? Something you were born to do? Is there one thing, one purpose for you to accomplish that would mean more in your life and in eternity than any other possible alternative?
That’s what True Potential is all about; discovering what you were born to do; your highest purpose. The good news is that you were born with the purpose and the potential to accomplish it pre-installed. It was planned for you and you alone, a long, long time before your parents ever conceived you. And it was deposited into your life at birth, like DNA; just as much a part of you as the color of your eyes and as individual as your fingerprints. You already possess your true potential. It’s just waiting on you to do something about it.
Your happiness, meaning and fulfillment in this life, and in the next, are wrapped up in accomplishing the purpose for which you exist. You are here for a very real and very personal reason. If you believe that this universe and everything in it (that includes you) is the product and design of a purposeful and personal Creator, then you must also believe that He has a purpose for your existence. This unique purpose, according to the Bible, was in the mind of God long before you or I ever existed.
That’s what True Potential Publishing and Purpose weekly is all about. Each week we will send this newsletter with fresh commentary exploring just what our true potential is and how we go about realizing it. We will also discuss what doesn’t work; the things we’ve tried and that have failed us. Through Purpose you may just discover that success, happiness, and fulfillment may be something entirely different, something much more profound than what the gurus and experts have been telling us.
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Stuff
We’ve tried consuming our way to happiness. The more stuff we get, the happier we’ll be right? We’ve turned consumption into a way of life. It’s our national pastime and we all participate. The people who sell stuff need to sell more stuff. They convince the people who buy stuff that they need to own more stuff. We’re convinced that the next widget or the next upgrade will finally satisfy us, and the sellers stay in business by convincing us that we deserve to be satisfied.
We’ve consumed ourselves into back-breaking debt. America’s National Debt now stands at over eight trillion, eight-hundred and seventy-four billion dollars; that’s $29,349.97 per person – man, woman and child. We’re up to our eyeballs in bills and we’re so broke we buy the kids’ Happy Meals with a Visa card. Our garages are so filled with stuff that we can’t park a bicycle in them, let alone our two financed cars sitting in our mortgaged driveway. All this stuff, all this debt and the only solution we can come up with is to shop for a bigger garage. We just can’t get enough stuff.
Crushing debt isn’t the only thing that’s killing us. Physically, we’re consuming ourselves into an early grave. Two modern plagues we’ve brought upon ourselves through our own affluence are chronic stress and obesity. Consumption diseases.
Chronic stress rules our lives. We’ve got to keep up, to keep buying, to keep consuming, to have more than the next guy…and there’s always a next guy. Whatever upgrade we just got, whether it’s leather trimmed upholstery for the car, an upscale kitchen for the house, a classier neighborhood for the kids, or super-size fries for lunch, there’s an even better, even bigger choice just ahead. It costs a little more than the last upgrade, but all we need to do is stretch just a little further….
All that stretching for just a little more stresses us to the point of mental and physical breakdown. As a society, as a family, as individuals we’ve stretched and stressed more than we can handle. We’re at the end of our collective rope; we’ve tied a knot and we’re hanging on…barely. And there’s no end in sight.
Heart disease, high blood pressure, insomnia, ulcers, chronic fatigue, migraines and the list goes on…all stress related diseases. Of course, our never ending quest for stuff doesn’t just create an epidemic of stress related diseases; it creates a whole new industry of cures. Watched TV lately? Then you know that we’ve created a pharmaceutical solution for every symptom we’ve brought upon ourselves. Just what the doctor ordered…more stuff.
America’s number one health problem isn’t AIDS, it isn’t bird flu, it’s not even germs from public places; it’s obesity. The Centers for Disease Control reports that fully one third of our nation is obese; and the trend is moving upward. We’ve consumed so much it’s killing us. Which is a little ironic, since America is also the world’s number one consumer of diet and health products.
And, surprise, surprise…the medical industry has now positively linked stress to obesity. It seems that all this fret over getting more than the next guy or more than we have now is causing us to blow up like Violet Beauregard in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.
The problem is, after we’ve stuffed and stuffed until we can’t stuff no more, we discover, that having stuff and consuming stuff hasn’t satisfied us. At the end of the day all of our stuff hasn’t made us happy. We’re full but we’re not fulfilled.
So what do we do? Renounce all worldly stuff, move to a cave and eat twigs and roots? If having stuff doesn’t fulfill us, will not having stuff do the trick? Will a life of self-imposed poverty and ascetic self-denial lead us to true happiness? Before you give away all your stuff, let me let you in on something…that doesn’t work either.
Here’s a little aphorism my father laid on me when I was a teenager: “Son, I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor and believe me, rich is better.” Dad was a minister and his life was more invested in eternal riches than worldly wealth. But what I think he meant is that even though the Bible promises that the poor will be blessed in the Kingdom of Heaven, it doesn’t guarantee that their lot in this life will be all that comfortable. I don’t believe there is any special righteousness in being poor, anymore than there is any transcendent honor in being rich.
The Bible does say, however, that where your treasure is, that’s where your heart is also. It also warns us against laying up earthly treasures at the expense of eternal treasure.
Here’s the bottom line: We’re not on this earth for a very long time. Our mission here is not to consume and collect stuff until we die. We have something much more important to do here than become the winner of some cosmic hotdog eating contest. There’s nothing wrong with stuff, if we understand who really owns it and it doesn’t clutter the path of our real mission in life.
Stuff may make us comfortable and may make our life easier, but it’s no substitute for purpose. If you’ve made collecting and consuming stuff your purpose in life; if your highest goal is the next upgrade, then you’ve sold yourself way short. Your reason for existence is so much more important than what you own or what your drive or what you eat.
The Creator of the universe was actually thinking about you when He spoke all of this into existence. He had a specific reason for you to exist on earth at this particular moment in time. He’s got a job for you to do… just you. Pretty remarkable isn’t it? That the Creator of the universe has something He wants you to do? I can’t believe that collecting stuff is what He had in mind for your mission in life. There’s something much more spectacular planned for you. Something that’s been planned for a long, long time.
That’s what True Potential is all about. Your true potential has already been planted inside you. It’s been waiting for you to come along since way before you were ever conceived. It’s been waiting since the universe was conceived in the mind of the Creator. That potential, that plan, that purpose, that task was in the mind of the Creator, specifically for you, back at the beginning of this whole shebang. Anything less than pursuing that first purpose in your life would be a tragedy. You were born for this. Let’s get to it!
Like I said – we decided. I’d like to hear from you. You tell us how the Purpose weekly works for you. What do you think of the articles? Do you agree? Disagree? What do you want to see more of?
Purpose is sent to your e-mail box weekly. There is no subscription fee. If you want to receive Purpose Weekly free via e-mail just go to http://www.gotpotential.org/ and sign up. Purpose Weekly is a publication of True Potential Publishing.
Enjoy the articles below and remember to visit http://www.gotpotential.org/ to read more or to access back issues of True Potential e-magazine.
Purpose Weekly
July 19, 2007
The weekly newsletter of True Potential Publishing
True Potential? What’s that supposed to mean?
You want to be happy. You want to succeed. You want a sense of fulfillment. You want that warm fuzzy feeling that tells you everything’s okay. You’ve got an inkling that your life should somehow mean something, that there should be some purpose to your existence. You want to be happy and you want your life to count – you know that much. How to get there though, you’re not so sure.
When it comes to happiness, success, fulfillment and purpose, it seems like there’s a guru around every corner and on every TV infomercial; ready to show us how we can be more successful, better looking, happier, healthier and richer in as little as five minutes a day – without leaving home. We’ve listened to the spiel, we’ve bought the products and we’ve tried their fool-proof paths to success, happiness, and whiter teeth. We followed the instructions and walked the walk. In the end, we find ourselves about where we started; a little older and a little poorer, but no happier, no more fulfilled.
Even God’s spokesmen are getting in on the success and happiness biz. Whether they promise that you’ll discover your purpose in forty days or experience your best life now, the message is pretty much the same as the guys in the infomercials, but with a religious twist; “Find meaning, get rich and make God happy at the same time!”
So why another happiness/meaning/fulfillment/purpose program? Haven’t we had enough? I agree, adding one more twist to the same old agenda isn’t going to do any of us any good. But what if this message is different? What if it’s about living up to our real potential? Our real purpose?
We’ve all got potential. The self-help gurus have educated us plenty on that. They claim that we have the potential to be or do anything we want. And to a point they’re right – we do have a lot of potential. But potential to be what? Rich? Famous? Happy? Loved?
The truth is, you’ve got the potential to do or be almost anything you want. But how do you know what you want? In the long run, what is it that will bring you true fulfillment? What possible purpose could you serve that would mean more than anything else? Is there such a thing as your highest purpose? Something you were born to do? Is there one thing, one purpose for you to accomplish that would mean more in your life and in eternity than any other possible alternative?
That’s what True Potential is all about; discovering what you were born to do; your highest purpose. The good news is that you were born with the purpose and the potential to accomplish it pre-installed. It was planned for you and you alone, a long, long time before your parents ever conceived you. And it was deposited into your life at birth, like DNA; just as much a part of you as the color of your eyes and as individual as your fingerprints. You already possess your true potential. It’s just waiting on you to do something about it.
Your happiness, meaning and fulfillment in this life, and in the next, are wrapped up in accomplishing the purpose for which you exist. You are here for a very real and very personal reason. If you believe that this universe and everything in it (that includes you) is the product and design of a purposeful and personal Creator, then you must also believe that He has a purpose for your existence. This unique purpose, according to the Bible, was in the mind of God long before you or I ever existed.
That’s what True Potential Publishing and Purpose weekly is all about. Each week we will send this newsletter with fresh commentary exploring just what our true potential is and how we go about realizing it. We will also discuss what doesn’t work; the things we’ve tried and that have failed us. Through Purpose you may just discover that success, happiness, and fulfillment may be something entirely different, something much more profound than what the gurus and experts have been telling us.
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Stuff
We’ve tried consuming our way to happiness. The more stuff we get, the happier we’ll be right? We’ve turned consumption into a way of life. It’s our national pastime and we all participate. The people who sell stuff need to sell more stuff. They convince the people who buy stuff that they need to own more stuff. We’re convinced that the next widget or the next upgrade will finally satisfy us, and the sellers stay in business by convincing us that we deserve to be satisfied.
We’ve consumed ourselves into back-breaking debt. America’s National Debt now stands at over eight trillion, eight-hundred and seventy-four billion dollars; that’s $29,349.97 per person – man, woman and child. We’re up to our eyeballs in bills and we’re so broke we buy the kids’ Happy Meals with a Visa card. Our garages are so filled with stuff that we can’t park a bicycle in them, let alone our two financed cars sitting in our mortgaged driveway. All this stuff, all this debt and the only solution we can come up with is to shop for a bigger garage. We just can’t get enough stuff.
Crushing debt isn’t the only thing that’s killing us. Physically, we’re consuming ourselves into an early grave. Two modern plagues we’ve brought upon ourselves through our own affluence are chronic stress and obesity. Consumption diseases.
Chronic stress rules our lives. We’ve got to keep up, to keep buying, to keep consuming, to have more than the next guy…and there’s always a next guy. Whatever upgrade we just got, whether it’s leather trimmed upholstery for the car, an upscale kitchen for the house, a classier neighborhood for the kids, or super-size fries for lunch, there’s an even better, even bigger choice just ahead. It costs a little more than the last upgrade, but all we need to do is stretch just a little further….
All that stretching for just a little more stresses us to the point of mental and physical breakdown. As a society, as a family, as individuals we’ve stretched and stressed more than we can handle. We’re at the end of our collective rope; we’ve tied a knot and we’re hanging on…barely. And there’s no end in sight.
Heart disease, high blood pressure, insomnia, ulcers, chronic fatigue, migraines and the list goes on…all stress related diseases. Of course, our never ending quest for stuff doesn’t just create an epidemic of stress related diseases; it creates a whole new industry of cures. Watched TV lately? Then you know that we’ve created a pharmaceutical solution for every symptom we’ve brought upon ourselves. Just what the doctor ordered…more stuff.
America’s number one health problem isn’t AIDS, it isn’t bird flu, it’s not even germs from public places; it’s obesity. The Centers for Disease Control reports that fully one third of our nation is obese; and the trend is moving upward. We’ve consumed so much it’s killing us. Which is a little ironic, since America is also the world’s number one consumer of diet and health products.
And, surprise, surprise…the medical industry has now positively linked stress to obesity. It seems that all this fret over getting more than the next guy or more than we have now is causing us to blow up like Violet Beauregard in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.
The problem is, after we’ve stuffed and stuffed until we can’t stuff no more, we discover, that having stuff and consuming stuff hasn’t satisfied us. At the end of the day all of our stuff hasn’t made us happy. We’re full but we’re not fulfilled.
So what do we do? Renounce all worldly stuff, move to a cave and eat twigs and roots? If having stuff doesn’t fulfill us, will not having stuff do the trick? Will a life of self-imposed poverty and ascetic self-denial lead us to true happiness? Before you give away all your stuff, let me let you in on something…that doesn’t work either.
Here’s a little aphorism my father laid on me when I was a teenager: “Son, I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor and believe me, rich is better.” Dad was a minister and his life was more invested in eternal riches than worldly wealth. But what I think he meant is that even though the Bible promises that the poor will be blessed in the Kingdom of Heaven, it doesn’t guarantee that their lot in this life will be all that comfortable. I don’t believe there is any special righteousness in being poor, anymore than there is any transcendent honor in being rich.
The Bible does say, however, that where your treasure is, that’s where your heart is also. It also warns us against laying up earthly treasures at the expense of eternal treasure.
Here’s the bottom line: We’re not on this earth for a very long time. Our mission here is not to consume and collect stuff until we die. We have something much more important to do here than become the winner of some cosmic hotdog eating contest. There’s nothing wrong with stuff, if we understand who really owns it and it doesn’t clutter the path of our real mission in life.
Stuff may make us comfortable and may make our life easier, but it’s no substitute for purpose. If you’ve made collecting and consuming stuff your purpose in life; if your highest goal is the next upgrade, then you’ve sold yourself way short. Your reason for existence is so much more important than what you own or what your drive or what you eat.
The Creator of the universe was actually thinking about you when He spoke all of this into existence. He had a specific reason for you to exist on earth at this particular moment in time. He’s got a job for you to do… just you. Pretty remarkable isn’t it? That the Creator of the universe has something He wants you to do? I can’t believe that collecting stuff is what He had in mind for your mission in life. There’s something much more spectacular planned for you. Something that’s been planned for a long, long time.
That’s what True Potential is all about. Your true potential has already been planted inside you. It’s been waiting for you to come along since way before you were ever conceived. It’s been waiting since the universe was conceived in the mind of the Creator. That potential, that plan, that purpose, that task was in the mind of the Creator, specifically for you, back at the beginning of this whole shebang. Anything less than pursuing that first purpose in your life would be a tragedy. You were born for this. Let’s get to it!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)