Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Passion, Purpose, and Promise for the Christian

Open almost any magazine these days and it seems you are faced with questions about passion and purpose.

Why have books like Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life spawned a slew of other books and magazine articles? Why has the idea of purpose resonated so deeply?

And check the internet. Google will supply you with almost 80,000 entries for life coaching and coaches who can help you reach a deeper level of understanding of who you are and what you should be doing to experience a fulfilled life.

Have we suddenly become desperate to make our lives count or do we, as the most privileged people on earth, just want more of everything and can’t stand the thought of not having wrung the last drop out of existence? We leave nothing to chance and are ready to make drastic changes to grasp what life can offer. We’ve gone from “Bloom where you’re planted” to “Plant yourself where you can bloom”?

And what do we do with the guilt if we don’t have one overarching, bigger-than-life passion? What if we seem to have no massive purpose in life--at least not one that other people recognize?

First, if we call ourselves Christians—Christ followers—we look to Jesus and his teachings for answers.

To live authentically, we can turn to Ephesians 1:11. In the version called The Message, it says: “It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for…”

As we study scripture we find Jesus calling his believers to follow him, to love others, to take care of the poor, to go and make other disciples. We have been given mandates, and that gives us purpose.

In living out that purpose—passionately—we are promised abundant life.

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