Purpose

What is your purpose?

I decided not to let Sarah shoulder my responsibility of explaining that question. At first I thought you might think I meant, "What's your point?" in a sarcastic tone. You know the way some old curmudgeons do..."And your point is..." (blink, blink, blink), "Your point being..." (one eyebrow raised).

Lately I have been struggling with God. Do I really want to live for Him and obey Him? When I say, "Your will be done, Lord," do I mean it? I don't like to say those things to God without really meaning them, so I find myself avoiding that decision. Do I want to drop everything I'm currently doing and let God examine those things and lead me in one direction or not in another?

Yesterday in my Bible study the author of the book we are doing (Priscilla Shirer) gave us three "red flags" we can look for to see if we are really living in God's will. The 3rd red flag was "Am I thankful?" When I looked at the ways I currently spend my time, I started to ask myself that question. I decided that yes, I was thankful for alone time and yes, I was thankful for chocolate. But am I thankful for America's Next Top Model? On Thursday afternoons I usually watch the ANTM episode I Tivo'd the night before (you know this verb, to tivo). Am I thankful to God for giving me this leisure time outlet? Ouch!

As a Christian my purpose, as Sarah said, is to glorify God with what He has blessed me. I can glorify Him by being patient with my kids or by offering to watch a friend's child. I can glorify Him by not nagging my husband when we disagree, and by praying for important people in my life. I'm not certain I glorify Him by watching America's Next Top Model on Thursday afternoons.

Then I get caught up asking myself, "Come on, I can't be expected to glorify God every minute of every day, can I? I can watch a silly TV show once a week," (like that's all the TV I watch - ha!). No, I can't be expected to. I'm not perfect. I'm a sinful human being (there's that word nobody likes, but let's be honest about our behavior. Does it live up to Jesus's behavior?) If my measuring stick is Jesus, I'm going to fall short. However, I may as well not set myself up for failure by not even striving to let the Holy Spirit rule my behavior rather than my yucky fleshly flesh.

So what is your purpose? No sarcasm, just an honest question. Do you live your purpose? I don't. Do you try? I do. Sometimes. God is working on this one with me right now as we "speak." Will I keep listening? I hope so. The holiday season is rough. It's busy and there are many schedule interruptions. I believe that Jesus is the reason for the season, to quote a singsong little phrase, but this is the time of year I'm most likely to get off track in terms of the time I spend in fellowship with God.

I'm looking for a clever little way to wrap up this post, but my immediate public awaits and I can glorify God by serving them right now.