Posted tagged ‘passions’

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Inflating Purposelessness

June 27, 2025

  “Everyone, then, who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. 25 The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on rock.” (Matthew 7:24-25)

We have a vehicle that has a tire problem. It’s not that it needs to be replaced. We’ve done that. For some reason, the same tire keeps losing air pressure. On a monthly basis, the low air pressure light comes on, and we pump more air into it. No matter how many times we do it, cold weather aas well as hot weather, it seems to be a situation where we keep trying to pump something up that can’t hold it.

It reminds me of so many tires in the sports world. That is, our culture has a way of trying to pump purpose into purposelessness, importance into the non-essential. And being people who tend to be swayed to buy swampland in Florida, we fall into the pit of the pointless.

For example, last week there was a sports program on TV of the Dog Surfing Championships, one canine after another standing stiffly on a surfboard. Add to that the time slot for the Slippery Slide Race, the Professional Pillow-Fighting League pummeling, and the Kickball Battle of the week and a person is able to waste a whole afternoon watching contests that are about as meaningful as my Aunt Irene’s “afternoon stories” (soap operas).

It seems that our lives are so rootless that we’re on the lookout for someone or something to root for. Like the continual pumping of air into my tire, it doesn’t hold with lasting meaning. It doesn’t mean we should stay away from activities that are enjoyable and entertaining, but we have a bad habit of avoiding what is most important because we’re fixated “…on a tire that won’t last.”

I saw an interview with an Episcopalian nun named Sister Monica Clare. A new book she has written entitled, A CHANGE OF HABIT, talks about the realization of where she was spending her time. She color-coded her calendar according to different pursuits. For her, God is the top priority, but her calendar showed that she was spending very little time in ways that involved the Holy. Thus, she reorganized her life to “pursue her pursuit.”

What would we say is most important, and what are the pursuits that we keep putting air into that continue to go flat? And what are the events of life that people keep telling us are important, almost vital to our existence, that we have bought into but are really meaningless? There are passions and pastimes, and we sometimes confuse the two.

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Discovering Purpose in Abundant Opportunities

November 27, 2016

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                            November 27, 2016

                      

I was looking for my shaving kit yesterday. I looked all around our bathroom and couldn’t find it. I started fretting that I had left it at the school I had officiated a basketball game at the day before…and then I found it! Sitting on the bathroom counter in plain sight of God and everyone!

That seems to happen to me more frequently in these “senior discount years!” Last month I was looking for my car keys…and then I figured out that I was holding them in my left hand! It is at those times that I self-identify myself as an idiot.

I had a recent conversation with someone about purpose. More specifically “life purpose.” The person was in a time of his life when the opportunities were numerous. In that state of blessedness there laid the problem. He had TOO MANY opportunities. He was an ADD opportunist, not being able to focus on one or two things because of all the others. In so doing he was watering down the potential effect of his life purpose.

Sometimes people are grieved by the lack of opportunities, but sometimes people are blinded by the multitude of possibilities.

In the conversation with my friend there were glimpses of discovery. He was beginning to feel the unrest within him. A couple of opportunities that would be rewarding in the short-term would also keep him from focusing on a couple of areas that had deeper and longer-lasting blessings. Focusing on recreational opportunities in the present would most assuredly have relational consequences in the future. Situations that brought recognition in a certain setting were requiring more and more time, which were resulting in a tug-of-war with his life calling.

He was experiencing what I experience when I sit in my home study surrounded by my library of about 2,000 books. I’ve got so many books to read that I find it hard to read them! Weird and true!

For most of us it takes a majority of a lifetime to hone in on our purpose, our life calling. We are lured to new opportunities like flies on honey. We are seduced by the unimportant while the things that are life-impacting become obscured.

In my life opportunities have been abundant. If my life was DVR’ed and I could go back to the beginning of some of my episodes I’d do a few things differently. I wouldn’t let pastoring a church take me away from family as many evenings as it did. I would have told my kids that I loved them more than I did. I would have spent less time developing church programs and more time growing disciples. And I would have spent more time living my faith instead of sermonizing about it.

On the other hand, as I look at my life I see my life purpose, like a trail in the woods, has become easy to see. There are more things that I am at peace with than areas where I am conflicted. It’s taken a few decades to stay on the path, but in the midst of abundant opportunities I have a clear sense of direction. It doesn’t mean that I have arrived, but it does mean that I’m on course.

I encouraged my friend to focus on those areas that emphasize relationships, and to pursue what he is passionate about. Those things that promote rewards and instant gratification need more scrutiny.

It’s different for every person, but the constant is that every person has a purpose that needs to be discovered and pursued. Like false messiahs there will be many to follow, but few that are worth it! Like my shaving kit quite often our life purpose is right there in front of us. We just need to see it!

Categories: children, Christianity, coaching, Jesus, love, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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The Disappointment of New Possibilities

April 19, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                  April 19, 2013

 

This past week I had the door closed on me twice in regards to opportunities related to one of my passions, one of the things that I’ve been involved in that energize me. Suddenly what looked like a new venture, a new chapter, became a brick wall. A few days the brick wall re-emerged in regards to another possibility.

What does a person do when the wind is taken out of the sail? I admit that my initial reaction was one of self-pity and confusion. My ego jumped into the ring and became the center of attention. When the situation revolves around something that we are passionate about it is easy to go that way. Most of us believe that our giftedness is always affirmed with a “yes”, as it relates to the area we are gifted in. Our value gets tied up with the opportunity.

When our passions, experience, and skill get presented with a new opportunity that is seemingly in perfect harmony with them we assume this is the way of God. This is the door that is being opened for us. We even spiritualize it by saying that all we need to do is have faith to walk through it.

But there are times when perfect alignment is not the tell-tale sign that this is what God was preparing for us all along.

Sometimes God is in the closed doors! That’s hard for most of us to hear because we believe more in open doors than closed doors. Closed doors require us to look further. Closed doors make us wait. Closed doors can sometimes even be an indication that a chapter has ended. We’d prefer a “Let’s Make A Deal” scenario where we get to choose between three doors instead of two closed doors and one open.

I remember a number of years ago being contacted by a pastoral search committee. One Sunday they inconspicuously visited the worship service at the church I pastored. Carol and I met with them about a month later “on their turf” and, from all indications, we felt God was calling us to move there. Then, in the midst of that, they went in another direction. We were disappointed, but ultimately the church I was pastor of went through a new period of fruitfulness.

It is hard to see the possibilities in rejection. It requires a willingness to trust that God knows what he is doing, and that he desires the best for each one of us… that hard news can lead us to good news.

It encourages me to know that God even gave stop signs to Paul and Silas. In Acts 16:6-7 we read of how the Holy Spirit kept them from preaching in certain areas, while not letting them even enter into other areas. It doesn’t take a seminary professor to be able to determine that Paul was being very effective in his ministry. You would think that all doors would be opened to him! But God had specific plans for him. A closed door one moment could be connected to a fulfilled purpose a few years down the road.

So my discouragement is tinted by eyes looking for new directions. The glare of being turned down will gradually dim and suddenly there in front of me will be the defined way.

Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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