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Why We Are Here

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Something Janet and I saw recently on social media caught our ear. It wasn’t bad in itself. There wasn’t anything wrong with it, per se. But it was the implicit assumption behind it that bothered us.

Social media is often just a highlight reel, and shows all the exciting, exotic adventures. Nothing wrong with any of that. I love exciting, exotic adventures. It’s all good.

But the message was, “I’m finally living my purpose. God has given me this adventurous life to enjoy.”

We never know what someone’s been through or their story, especially on social media. I would not begrudge anyone a happy and pleasurable life. That’s all good. God wants us to enjoy life.

But rather than say, “God has given me this adventurous life to enjoy,” I would change the word “enjoy” to “live.” That might not look like a big change at first, but it is. It is a huge change in perspective.

Yes, God wants us to enjoy life. Enjoying life is good. I’m all for enjoying life. But that’s not our purpose.

Living the life God has created us to live is our purpose.

Frankl over Freud

Sigmund Freud said, in a nutshell: Life revolves around pleasure. People live and search for pleasure more than anything else. Sex is the greatest pleasure possible, so life is really all about sex.

Now I’m not a prude, and sex is a really important part of life. When practiced according to God’s design — one biological man and one biological woman, inside a marriage covenant — it’s an amazingly beautiful thing. Deep intimacy within a sole, uncompromising, life-long covenant commitment, marriage is a model of our relationship with God. (That’s why there’s no marriage in Heaven, see Matthew 22:30. We’ll have the real thing; we won’t need the model anymore.)

But pursuing pleasure, even sex, is not what life’s about. Another psychologist, Viktor Frankl disagreed with Freud. In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl said, in a nutshell:

“People live and search for meaning. When they can’t find meaning, they settle for pleasure.”

— Viktor Frankl (my paraphrase), in Man’s Search for Meaning

Life is about purpose. We feel empty without it, and often medicate with all sorts of healthy and unhealthy pleasures when we can’t find it. But that doesn’t work. Pleasure doesn’t take away the void, the pain of an empty life lived without purpose. Pleasure only distracts us from the pain and the emptiness, and only temporarily.

So What’s Our Purpose?

Our purpose in the Kingdom of God is two-fold.

First, we were created to love God and be loved by him. That is success in life. Any definition of success beyond that is idolatry.

Second, we all have a unique purpose and calling on our life. It’s something we alone can bring into the world. It’s something that, if we don’t do it, no one will, and world will be worse off.

“This task was given to you, Frodo Baggins, and if you do not find a way, no one will.”

– Galadriel, in The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien

Loving God and Being Loved By Him

Like everything in the Kingdom, there is a corporate and individual component.

The individual component is our personal time with Jesus. This is everything, isn’t it? True fulfillment in life comes from this place of intimacy with Jesus. It’s that time you and him spend together alone, just the two of you, however you spend your time together. Private and intimate.

The corporate component is loving God in a loving, healthy, Church family. It’s where we participate with a body of believers and do life together, manifesting our love of God through our love for each other. Being part of a healthy, loving, church family is amazing. I couldn’t imagine life without these people. They are my real family.

The Unique Purpose and Call on Your Life

Counterintuitively, this also has a corporate and an individual component, like everything in the Kingdom.

Individually, your purpose is yours alone. It’s God’s unique calling on your life. It’s an exciting journey of discovery with him to uncover who you are and what you’re for. It’s exciting to partner with God for your life. And a bit terrifying, because your calling is bigger than what you could accomplish without him.

Whenever God talks to someone about their calling, Moses, Gideon, whoever, when they are overwhelmed by it and raise objections, God doesn’t disagree with their objections. He just says, “Nevertheless, I will be with you.” He loves the partnership with us!

Your calling is unique to you. One of the enemy’s greatest deceptions is getting us to judge others who are not called to what we’re called to. Everyone’s calling looks different, even when they are called to similar ministries.

So if our callings are unique to us, how can there be a corporate component? Because you can’t do it by yourself. None of us can accomplish our calling alone. We need community.

Even God needs community. It’s baked into the essence of his being. He has community within himself — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We were made in his image, so we need community.

This community doesn’t have to be the church. God’s put us in lots of different communities. It could be your church. But it could also be your company, your school, your neighborhood, or a group of people doing what you’re doing. For example, an artist needs to hang around with other artists.

I have a writer’s mastermind group I’m in, peers doing the same online thing that I am. I couldn’t do this without them. Each of us are good at something the others aren’t. For example, I hate doing video, but there’s someone in our group who does it professionally. Someone else turned me on to a graphic designer they knew when I needed one. And I have helped them with their tech challenges.

To summarize:

To experience loving God, alone with him and together with other believers, and to walk out his unique calling on our life, with the help of a supportive community — that’s what we were created for.

Your Turn

How about you? Does this resonate? What obstacles have gotten in the way, or are in the way, between you and God? Do you know the calling on your life? Where are you on that journey of discovery? Have you found a community? Tell us your thoughts and your story in the comments; it will bless others. And please share this post if it would bless others.

Why to Help, Not Rescue, Someone Who’s Destroying Their Life

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One of the most painful things in life is to watch one of our loved ones destroy their lives. It doesn’t matter if it’s drugs, alcohol, promiscuous sex, porn, gambling, or workaholism. Or something worse. When we medicate the pain in our lives instead of dealing with it, it’s always destructive. And it’s hard to watch. Sometimes it feels like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

If we’re going to really help, we’ve got to understand what’s healthy help and what’s unhealthy rescue.

Sometimes People Want Unhealthy Rescue Rather Than Healthy Help

Painfully, sometimes, the person destroying their life doesn’t want help. They want rescue.

So often, people don’t want to change the lifestyle that’s causing the pain in their lives. They just want to be free from the pain. It’s human nature to avoid pain. It takes bravery and courage to face it in order to receive healing.

It’s like someone banging their head on a brick wall. They want the headache to stop. But rather than being willing to stop banging their head on the brick wall, they’re looking for a helmet with more padding.

People in crisis often feel powerless. Like someone trapped on the third floor of a burning building, they want someone to pull up in a magic firetruck and rescue them from their pain.

Now don’t get me wrong. Yes, Jesus does rescue us. But Jesus is the only rescuer, and he only does so in partnership with us. We have to be willing to stop banging our head on the wall; i.e., stopping sinful lifestyle behaviors. And we need to be willing to face the pain those behaviors are medicating so Jesus can heal that pain.

Yes, we can significantly help people. We can help them find the fire-escape they didn’t see, and we can help them navigate it. We can link them up with resources they didn’t know about. But they have to be willing to use them. They can’t keep waiting at the window for the magic firetruck to show up.

Here are 3 reasons why we shouldn’t provide an unhealthy “magic firetruck” rescue for people.

1) They Have Right to Steward Their Life as They Choose

This is the hardest one. Janet and I have a wise friend who told us something we’ve never forgotten and often remind ourselves of:

Our children have to live their own adventure.

I hate that. I want to drive their boat. I want to just jump in there, and say, “Look, I’m over twice your age, and I know these waters. Let me get you off the sandbar you’re stuck on, avoid the rocks, and get you into safer waters. Then you can drive again.”

But that’s not healthy. That dishonors their God-given stewardship over their own life. I would just be forcing them to trade their dysfunctional coping mechanisms for mine, which does them no good in the end.

2) You Can’t Control Someone Else

Yes, ultimately, God is sovereign over our lives. We are stewards of our lives, not owners. But everyone has to choose for themselves whether to voluntarily let God sit on the throne of their life. Or not. God honors their choice, even when he disagrees with it. So must we.

You cannot control another person, no matter how much you think they would benefit from it.

“The only person I can control, on a good day, is myself.” – Danny Silk

That doesn’t mean condoning their choice. If they’re doing something destructive, yes, speak up. Point it out. But do so in a spirit of genuine concern rather than condemnation.

Condemnation is our (sinful) attempt to shame someone into doing the right thing, because, if we’re honest, we’re scared. Condemnation is an act of fear on our part. It’s using the enemy’s tools, which never ends well.

3) Interfering with Sowing and Reaping Hurts Them in the Long Run

Well-meaning parents do this all the time for their children. We need to let our loved ones own the problem.

If we’re solving the consequences of their bad decisions, then we are taking ownership of the problem away from them. We are interfering with God’s process of sowing and reaping.

If they are making poor choices, to the fullest extent possible, let them deal with the consequences. Let them own the problem.

That doesn’t mean we can’t help. But help, don’t rescue. Here’s how to tell the difference:

Rescuing removes the pain. Helping does not.

If you completely remove the pain from a situation they’ve caused, you’re rescuing, not helping.

Think of it like this. They are the rookie quarterback on the football field, with 10 seconds left in the game. You’re the coach. They have one shot to execute the winning play. As a former all-star, hall-of-fame, quarterback yourself, you could go out on the field and execute the play for them.

But you don’t. As the coach, you call the play, but they have to execute it. And they can choose not to. The quarterback can call an audible at the line and change the play. Maybe as they see how the defense is lining up, they decide the play you called won’t work. It’s their choice. The quarterback can modify the play or change it all together.

And they own the results.

Let Them Own Their Problem

At the end of the day, they have to live with the consequences of their choices. True, no one is responsible for the evil done to them. But we are responsible for our response to it.

“The last of the human freedoms: to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” — Viktor Frankl, Holocaust Survivor in his book Man’s Search for Meaning

Letting someone own their problem, and the consequences, is painful, especially when we can alleviate their suffering in the short term. But if we interfere with God’s design of sowing of reaping, we’re actually hurting them in the long run. Yes, totally help. But don’t rescue.

Your Turn

Have you been on either side of this principle? Has a painful season of sowing and reaping taught you valuable life lessons? Have you had to let a family member go down a destructive or foolish path to learn for themselves? Or have you been that family member?

Tell us your story in the comments and please share if this would bless someone else.