When Passion and Purpose Collide

Delight yourself also in the LORD,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4, NKJV).

I was talking with a friend the other day and mentioned how much I enjoyed my job and how blessed I was to be able to use God’s gift of writing and communicating. She responded, “That’s what happens when passion and purpose collide.”

Wow. What a profound statement! I’ve been thinking about it ever since and realized it lines up perfectly with Psalm 37:4. When we take our delight, our joy, from spending time with and belonging to the Lord, He brings to fruition the very seeds of desire He has planted in our heart. As He wove us together in our mother’s womb, He gifted us for His purpose; those gifts become our passion as we grow and explore and venture out into various activities. But when we submit those passions to God’s purpose, explosive things happen. Fruit begins to blossom and bud and ripen to an extent we could never have achieved or even imagined in our own efforts.

Every individual born on this earth is stamped with the image of almighty God, and each is gifted with a passion and ability to fulfill God’s purpose for our existence. We can choose to ignore God and waste our gifts and passions on our own pleasure…or allow God to direct us in the way He wants us to go, the things He wants us to do, the people He wishes us to touch. That choice will determine not only our personal fulfillment here on earth, but also our ability to lay an offering at the feet of our Lord when we cross the threshold into heaven.

And it’s all about what happens when passion and purpose collide.

Are You Chosen?

November 11, 2010

“I have chosen you,” says the Lord of hosts (Haggai 2:23, NKJV).

Remember standing in line on the playground while the team leaders chose their groups? Remember being the one not chosen? Remember the humiliation of hearing the leaders argue over who “has” to include you on their team? Maybe that wasn’t you. Maybe you were one of the first ones chosen, and you remember the joy and exhilaration of hearing your name called early on. Or maybe you were somewhere in between, in which case you may remember hoping to be called as soon as possible so you wouldn’t end up too close to the end.
Whatever the case, we all experienced some of the effects of being “chosen”—or not. If we weren’t, perhaps we pretended as if it didn’t matter, but it did, didn’t it? No one wants to be rejected. We all want to be chosen. And God knows that better than we ever could…because He designed us that way. He wants to choose us, and He wants us to respond accordingly. It is His heart’s desire that we willingly choose to belong to Him. But inherent in that choice is a willingness to respond to His call as well as His choice.
What is that call? It’s a call to serve on His team, shoulder to shoulder with the others He has called and chosen. Just as the leader or captain of a sports team chooses team members so they can participate in the game, God chooses us so we can participate in the work of His Kingdom. We aren’t chosen simply so we can know where we will end up when we breathe our last here on earth. We are chosen to serve our team Captain in the fulfilling of the ministry of reconciliation, which Jesus began and has now committed to us.
If you haven’t already responded to God’s call and joined His team, don’t wonder whether or not He’s calling you; He is. Now you need to respond. And then you need to listen and find out what He has purposed for you to do once you’ve joined the team.
We are called, we are chosen…and we are on the only winning team. But no one is called or chosen to sit on the sidelines. God has a purpose for you. Find out what it is…and then dedicate the rest of your life to fulfilling it. I promise you, there is no greater joy!

Don't settle for being "brought out"!

“Then He brought us out from there, that He might bring us in,
to give us the land of which He swore to our fathers” (Deuteronomy 6:23).

It’s amazing how many of us believers are satisfied to be “brought out” and forget that God also wants to “bring us in.” We are content with the proverbial “fire insurance” that spares us an eternity in hell yet care little about fulfilling our God-ordained purpose during our brief sojourn here on earth.
I remember when I was first saved in 1974 I heard a pastor say, “If God didn’t have a purpose for your life, He would take you straight to heaven the moment you became a believer.” I was 26 then, with a lifetime of opportunities ahead of me, which I could use to serve God—or self. Sadly my choices haven’t always been the right ones; as a result, I wasted much of the time that could have been used to fulfill God’s purposes for my life. I was content with being “brought out,” showing little concern about partnering with God to “bring me in.” Now, in my seventh decade of life, my greatest regret is the time I spent serving self, rather than God.
Most of you are behind me on the homeward journey, with more time ahead of you to make those right choices. I encourage you today to study the book of Deuteronomy and learn from the Israelites’ time in the wilderness, as they vacillated between obeying God and doing their own thing. For, ultimately, that’s the key to being brought in to the fulfillment of God’s purpose for our life—obedience. If God says “turn left” but we go right, we have just taken a detour from the path He has marked out for us. Being obedient to God today assures us that we will end up exactly where He wants us to be tomorrow. And that’s the reason He “brought us out” in the first place.
Don’t miss it, beloved. Following God’s plan to “bring us in” is the only way to find the joy and fulfillment that we all seek….

For such a time as this...

“Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom
for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14).

I would like to tell you that throughout this past week I have been a spiritual rock, standing strong for my family as they gathered together in what appeared to be my mother’s last days. I would like to say that—but I can’t. Not only has God spared Mom to live out the full number of days He has allotted to her, but I have (once again!) been reminded of my own weaknesses and fallibility.
Weary is the word that comes to mind, and with it a desire to escape to some quiet place where rest is an achievable goal. And yet…
Though my body cries out for rest…my soul is at peace.
Though details and responsibilities seem to multiply at a ridiculous pace…my soul is at peace.
Though others encourage me to take care of myself in the midst of caring for others…my soul is at peace.
Though all these things are true—my body needs rest, my to-do list is far too long, and I must take care of myself if I am to care for others—my soul is still at peace.
For God, you see, is the Source of my peace. He is my strength and my rest and my joy—and my great Reward at the end of the day. When all else changes, He remains the same. Even when the earth shakes (which it did here in Southern California this past Sunday evening!), God remains unshaken.
And that is where my focus must remain, particularly when well-meaning loved ones and friends tell me that God would not want me to wear myself out, that He wants me to be happy and fulfilled, to even have fun once in awhile….
Really? Hmm… True, moments of happiness and fun sometimes invade our lives, and I am grateful each time that happens. But is it our purpose? Or is that purpose so much higher than a self-serving life?
Again, I don’t discount the need to care for ourselves as best we can, for health and well-being enables us to effectively serve God and others. But when Mordecai confronted Queen Esther about interceding with the king to save the Jewish people from extinction, the queen’s personal happiness and fun were not even figured into the equation. Knowing that she would be putting her own life on the line to approach the king uninvited, Mordecai challenged Esther to lay down her dreams, her comfort, her security—everything—in order to fulfill God’s calling and purpose for her life: “Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Did Queen Esther realize the seriousness of this challenge? Absolutely! She accepted the challenge and said, “If I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16).
As it turned out, Esther did not perish and, in fact, was instrumental in saving the Jewish people. But if she had perished in the attempt, would she have failed? Would she have wasted her life?
Not if that was God’s purpose for her being here in the first place! Though we don’t all have such a world-changing calling or purpose as Queen Esther, we each have a specific, God-given purpose for walking this earth—a purpose that far outweighs our need to be happy or “have fun” along the way. If fulfilling that God-ordained purpose means that we perish in the process, so be it. How better to be assured that when we step from here into eternity we will hear those wonderful words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of the Lord.”
At the end of the day—or of our earthly lives—does anything else really matter?