Saturday, April 29, 2006

Discovering Your Mission

This is a talk I gave during our Senior high spring retreat last weekend. It was an awesome time in Black Water Falls, WV. I'll get pictures and things up later, but figured I'd post this talk. As a warning, it's a bit long...



Last night Alex was playing Imagine by John Lennon for me. I’m pretty sure it was just for Alex and my benefit, since there was WAY too much noise going on around the table with people playing cards for them to have even noticed Alex had a guitar in his hands. It really was a great evening, and a good way to settle down.

The song spurred me into imagination. I want you to imagine something with me.

Close your eyes… No peeking, even Rachel can close her eyes while Big Bird plays hide and seek with Ernie.

Imagine with me a 10 foot deep hole with a ladder on one side. Now imagine my daughter Rachel doesn’t pay attention and accidentally slides down the side and into the whole. She’s ok, but stuck. Imagine what it must be like for Rachel at the bottom of the hole, looking up at me over the edge and wailing because she feels trapped and can’t find any way out. I’m at the top of the hole pointing, talking and trying to explain how to get to the ladder, but she can’t hear me over her sobs. Until she settles down and actually listens to me, she’ll never find a way out. I can do tons of things, but until she settles down it will all be wasted.

What pit are you stuck in right now? What questions do you feel that you just have to answer right now? Are you wondering what you want to be when you grow up? Wondering what you want to do with your life? Are you asking where you fit in God’s plan? Are you feeling led more by what you think your parents desire for you instead of where you feel God leading you? Have you wondered about entering ministry full-time or go into the marketplace after college?

These questions are always on our minds. Some of these are questions I keep asking myself, and listening to the wrong voices for answers. We’ll stay stuck in the pit of indecision until we look too God and let His answers lead us out.

Okay, you can open your eyes.

Have you ever heard the country song “It’s 5 O’clock Somewhere”? The chorus goes like this:

“Pour me something tall and strong,
Make it a hurricane, before I go insane.
It’s only half past 12, but I don’t care…
It’s 5 o’clock somewhere”

At one point the two singers talk about heading out and one singer makes sure that the other is keeping it “between the navigational beacons”. Every time I think about getting directions or being lost (which happened far too much yesterday) I think about keeping it between the “navigational beacons”.

Yesterday night we went around the same circle of road three times. We doubled back and still didn’t make it. It wasn’t until we slowed down and read the signs along the way that we finally found our way out of the endless loop we were stuck in.

God has put each one of you here for a reason. Sometimes we need to slow down and forget about schedules, forget about how upset we are that we’re lost. We need to turn to God and let him give us direction. I have to tell you, when you figure out what God has planned for you, and you follow that path you will find peace and fulfillment. It always begins with God.

Look at James 1:5, the last person to find it gets to read. God is our navigational beacon. “If any of you lack Wisdom, he should ask God, which gives generously to all without finding fault and it will be given to them. God is generous and wants you to be happy. God gives wisdom if we seek and pray to him”.

So, what is Wisdom?


Those are pretty good answers.

Wisdom is godly understanding. It’s seeing things as God sees them. See, we don’t see things as they are… we see them as WE are.

Wisdom also helps us get a clear focus on our purpose. Going back to our imagination. If I asked you to picture your life, what image would come to mind?

That image is your life metaphor. It’s the view of your life that you hold unconsciously in your mind. If you view life as a race, you’ll value speed. If you view life as a party you’ll value fun. If you view life as a battle, winning will be your ultimate goal.

To fulfill you’re your purpose you’ll have to challenge conventional wisdom. We can’t conform to the standards of the world!

Why is it that adults say high school is the best time you’ll ever have? Why do they say it’s all down hill after college? Why do they want to be “young” again? Don’t they know how incredibly hard life is in high school?

Here’s what those adults really see when they look at you. They see lives that are able to be molded. Lives that don’t have to support a family or a house. Lives where you can do whatever you want. Sure you have to go to class and get through college. But if you wanted you could drop everything and enter the Peace Corps. You can become a missionary and go all over the world, without having to convince your husband or wife to come with you.

You can hear God’s mission and follow it right now. As you get older it may become harder to follow that mission, since you may have to convince others to follow with you. The pressures of the world will keep making your hold deeper and deeper so that your Father’s voice gets harder and harder to hear.

Someone read Jonah 1:1-3 and 2:1. God’s missions for us are pretty clear in our lives. But, just like Jonah, we tend to turn away from what those missions are. We listen to the people around us for guidance instead of going straight to the source.

So, how the heck do you figure out your mission anyway? Thankfully God has given us two great tools to give us clarity.

Prayer is one gift God has given us to find our mission.

In the van, how do you think my navigation system was able to play music through the radio? It worked because the radio was on the same station that the navigation system broadcast on. So, the Navigation system sent a signal as 106.3 FM and the radio had to be set to 106.3 FM to hear it. Any other channel would have been static or some other music station.

Prayer is the amplifier that takes His words and allows us to hear them. It helps bring us to Hid frequency. God is always speaking to us, but if we’re on the wrong channel we can’t pick him up.

There’s so much distraction and noise around us that it’s not easy to get on his wavelength. We so over stimulated that we don’t let God compete with our busy schedule. We want instant answers, like those we find on the Internet.

The frequency God works on is silence.

We need to create a time of silence to hear God speaking to us.

The second tool God gave each of us to understand His mission for us is scripture.

Yep, that book you keep cracking open whenever we ask you to read Book X, Chapter Y, and Verse Z isn’t just there for us to test your reading skills. It’s filled with God’s words.

Reading His words help us to understand what He wants the world around us to look like. Passages of scripture affect each of us differently. How you feel as you read the Bible helps you find your mission.

How do you know if you’re doing what God has planned for you? You know because you will finally be at peace.

For years I have felt that my job is not meeting the mission God has for me. In the work I do every day, I am not bringing people closer to God. I am not introducing people to God through my products. Every time someone logs into one of my applications, they are not deepening their faith.

I have a wonderful gift that lets me love each and every one of you. Even if you don’t share that love back. I was talking to Ann last night about my “favorites” in youth group. As we were talking I realized that every one of you were my favorites. Everyone here, everyone I see Sunday night and everyone I see Thursday night are my “favorite” in one way or another.

It’s true at work too. No matter how difficult a person is, you can see that they only want to make this world better for those around them. They just may not recognize how.

I thought that making the decision to go to seminary and become a priest would be relatively easy. I know God is leading me in that direction. I know He’s been leading me there for years. I never expected how much my own family would tell me I was making the wrong decision. Even my mom, who goes to church regularly and has kept me faithfully grounded, thinks it’s a bad idea to pursue right now. They all recognize that I have Rachel to raise and a family to help support. That’s impossible if I go to seminary, I’ll become a financial drain instead of a faucet.

At the same time, I do feel like I’m in that pit. The ladder is right beside me, but I just can’t see it. I am in a personal turmoil, and peace feels like it’s the farthest thing from my grasp.

I’m trying to compromise with God. I’m trying to find programming work with a company which produces products that help God’s mission for us. But nothing seems to fit.

It’s like my new van. I was sick of my Nissan Quest. It was expensive and had problems. I just felt uncomfortable in it. So I researched and test drove a ton of new cars. Not one of them “clicked” for me. I didn’t fall in love with a single one of them. Then I looked for a used minivan I could buy with my own money. I test-drove my Chrysler and fell in love with it. It just clicked, and now every time I get in the car I feel at peace. I love to drive again like I haven’t felt since college.

If you’re unsettled or uncertain about where God is moving in your life, it’s time to seek Him out. Once you have found God’s frequency and are following His will, you’ll find the Experience of Peace.

Find another person in the room, put your hands on their shoulders and close your eyes. I want you to pray for that person right now that they will accept God’s will for them in their lives. Also pray that they will receive the wisdom to know when it’s not God’s will.

1 comment(s):

This morning I wrote a short prayer, now blogged as Prayer for Indecision (the title is deliberately ambiguous). As is my wont, I searched the blogs with the title, and found your post: fine sentiment, well expressed. Thank you for sharing.

By Blogger AlanAJ01, at 5/22/2006 6:00 AM  

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