Our Purpose
If you have sat in church and said the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday and not felt compelled to be a part of those who would usher in the Kingdom here on earth, if you think it is up to God, Christ and the Holy Spirit, then I think you are sadly mistaken. Aren’t we Christ’s hands and feet and voice in this world? Wasn’t that Jesus’ purpose? Didn’t he come to teach the Good News of the kingdom of God and show how we are to live in the kingdom?[1] Why wouldn’t we take up the cause of the kingdom–demonstrating how to live and love fully, how to find our own true home to the world?
How many of us do you think it would take to make a difference here on Earth? A thousand? If a 1,000 people would do everything they do with love—with God’s undiscriminating, non-judging, embracing, flowing love? Would that be enough to change to world? What about 10,000 people who would love? Wouldn’t that be a force to be reckoned with? With 100,000 people who would love, would we Christians begin to be “known by our love, by our love,” as the hymn goes?[2]
I dream of the day when the kingdom becomes more than a potential, more than a possibility, but as an experiment in grace-filled living, it becomes a reality, visible and palpable, a living reality in the lives of many people. No more would it be hidden in plain sight, but in its visibility would offer a real alternative to the very human world we now live in.
The kingdom is not Eden, not a perfect place. It is a human place welcoming of all human beings, after all we were all made in God’s image. It is noisy, perhaps boisterous; it is full of the full range of human emotions; it is welcoming and embracing; it honors the gifts of everyone; it is a place of real connectedness with every other human being and with all creation and with God; it is home, our real home.
What about you? Are you willing to go all the way with Christ? Will you follow him until you are expressing his love in everything you do? Indiscriminately? Without judgment? Embracing everyone just as they are? Will you allow him to transform you from the inside out so that all the gods you have placed between you and the Real One have been let go of in favor of worship of the one God?
Will you let Christ uncover your unique package of gifts and talents and challenges in order to finally see what you were designed to do? Will you allow him to write on your heart your purpose and how it is to be expressed? Will you help usher in the kingdom here on Earth?
At our creation, sometime before our birth, we each are given a unique package of gifts and talents. Along with these come the challenges we will face that will help us refine and use those gifts and talents. God has a plan for our lives. Every call he makes to us would attract us to that plan. Every murmur our soul lifts up to draw us to it is designed to bring us to our true, created self. Sometimes the gifts and talents are obvious in childhood, like a musical or artistic or engineering ability. Sometimes we live into our created skill set. No matter. Each of us is called to bring forward our created skills with love and to help the Lord usher in the kingdom.
Our purpose may or may not involve the work we do. No matter. If we do everything with love, we will be advancing the kingdom. For the world knows little of love and love, as the Lord practices it, is the great change-agent of the world. Love sees all that is, it embraces it all, has patience with the person before it, forgives, takes joy in his or her creation and presence, is kind, good and gently with, has self-control(not control of the other), and is faithful.[3] Love flows out of the Lord to all creation and it is meant to flow out from us again right back out to all creation indiscriminately. When we have experienced God’s love for us in every cell of our body, when we feel loved, really loved, we are ready to pour it back out to everyone.
So welcome the “still, small voice” of God, listen to the murmurings of your soul. Notice the invitations that lack any coercion. We are free to choose to listen, to heed, to follow the Lord to our own true nature, to express who we were created to be with love. Then we will not only bring in the kingdom, we’ll be living in the kingdom here on Earth. Amen and Amen!
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Questions to ponder this week: Am I willing to discover who I am created to be and what my purpose in on this earth? Am I willing to follow the Indwelling Spirit and my soul on the journey of discovery? Will I go all the way wherever it takes me?
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Here is the blessing for this week: May 2015 be the year in which we count all our blessings and grace that the Lord sends our way—daily in a journal or out loud or in prayer. May we live in gratitude for the life we are given and for what we are called to do with it. May we truly learn how to truly love. In faith and love, Pat
[1] Mark 1:14-5, Luke 8:1
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CobNWUXb1M
[3] the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22-3