You might like to read this first…
I left the last post at the rather discouraging point of saying “That I gave up”. And in some ways I did.
As I grow older, and hopefully wiser, I come to realise that in those earlier days I had been seeking the answer to my “Is there a purpose” question in the wrong way. I needed to raised my head, go above the nitty gritty and look down. How best to do that. return to scripture of course.
He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water John 7 vs 38
God in His wisdom is more concerned with creating the image of Christ in us. I have thought for years that God usually has a different agenda to me. We have been set into freedom, not into law. We need to come at this “Purpose” question within that knowledge. He wants to create the image of Christ in us – so that we are walking in “Peace, joy, love” and so on. His desire, it seems to me, is for us to be so walking in intimacy with Him.
My wife and I started out as Anglicans. We often joke about “Good old Anglican balance” – somehow they are skilled at holding two seemingly different ideas together. And here is another one.
The bible clearly teaches that there are specific things that God has prepared for us to do. Perhaps things that only you or I can do. But as important as all that sounds (and it is!) we also have to remember that God is molding us into the very image of Christ. Sometimes (and perhaps its nearly always) then God will be more concerned about how much “peace, patience, kindness” and so on is flowing out of our “bellies” to the world around us than weather we work here or there.
Thats’s the “Freedom” that God for us.
How utterly wonderful.