"The Daily Bible Devotional" by F. LaGard Smith was very insightful this morning. It spoke to the mystery of why we were born when and where we were, why we had the parents we had and what we are supposed to do with the "life" we have been given. A brief quote from the devotional: "We do not live without purpose. Whatever our circumstances of birth, Scripture gives us abundant reason to believe that we too have been raised up so that God might show us his power, and through us, in some way unique to ourselves, to proclaim his name in all the earth."
I think of famous lines like, "I coulda been a contender", or "I yam what I yam and tha's all what I yam" or a high school friend whose mother dated Kirk Douglas, and remarked that she could have been his daughter if her mom had married the struggling actor instead of the lawyer/DA her mom eventually did marry. We don't have a lot of "say" in the details of our birth, but we do have a lot of control over what we do with the "hand we have been dealt". We can become victims or we can become over-comers by the choices we make along the way. When we come to faith in Jesus Christ and give Him our lives for His purpose and direction, we don't limit our choices, we actually expand them and can truly live with purpose and freedom. I see it more clearly every day as Karen and I pursue our Ministry of Miles, look back on the past thirteen months on the road, our time at The Great Passion Play and our stay here in Madison at Source of Light Ministries. We witness lives changed by this ministry and the lessons it distributes. We are moved by the "retired" missionaries who come here to keep serving The Lord when their physical abilities have waned, but they still have a purpose for getting up every day.
We live in a tough world, with major problems and some strange ideas of what is important and what we need to spend our time and money pursuing, but when we commit to working where God is at work, we can truly see what living with purpose is all about, and we can know "who we are and whose we are". Thank You, Lord for our identity in You.
Sent from my iPad
No comments:
Post a Comment