The God Core

I’ve begun reading Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life, finally. And I would strongly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read it as yet. It’s a powerfully written study on how to go about both finding and fulfilling God’s calling, plan and purpose for your life.

Warren’s first statement is that our purpose (“What are we here on earth for?”) is not “found within ourselves”, contrary to the assertions of popular literature. The truth is that we exist for God’s purposes, and not vice versa. Warren says that “many people try to use God for their own self-actualization, but that is a reversal of nature and is doomed to failure.”

Am I using God to fulfil myself? Am I force-fitting my “calling” to my dreams? Am I deciding my course of action a priori, and then finding scripture to justify my stance?

Searching myself, I find that it is probably true – I may have gospelized my dream of being in the Entertainment Industry by determining that it would be Christian entertainment. Hm. Maybe God did put that dream in my heart in the first place. But the realization leaves me with the imperative to pray hard about it, that God should search my heart, my motives, and reveal to me if my intentions were wrong, and deviant from His will.

The problem with self-help books is well-pointed out. They can in fact lead to success, if we put our mind to it, and if we are fortunate enough. BUT…

“…being successful and fulfilling your life's purpose are not at all the same
issue! You could reach all your personal goals, becoming a raving success by the
world's standard, and still miss the purposes for which God created you…”

The picture in my head that put things in perspective was this:

• The substandard way of thinking would be to treat the different parts of our lives as compartments, and one compartment is faith – it does not connect with the other aspects of our lives, and we can easily separate them in terms of time, company, activities, mindsets, lifestyles… you know what I’m talking about.

• Slightly better is the thinking that we have all aspects of our lives in place, in fixed positions, and we use God as a kind of Join-the-Dots mechanism, to make sure that our faith connects everything. Better, but still not there.

• And then there’s the actual design of God – where we let God be the centre of our lives, and everything spokes out from there, like a wagon-wheel – they cannot exist without God. It all ties in with the seek-ye-first-the-kingdom-of-God teaching… all things WILL be added to us!

God should be the center, the author AND PERFECTER of our purpose. Never my will, always His. Never my successes alone, always His.

Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts.