Days 5 and 6
I got two days behind already on the 40 days of Purpose reading, but its kinda legitimate. On Thursday, I injured my hands while belaying one of my friends Rock Climbing and was unable to really do much once I got home from that... Friday I have no excuse... but its Saturday and I'm catching back up.

After a nice conversation with Robbie, I picked up my book and started reading where I left off after Wednesday night... Chapter 5: "Seeing Life through God's Eyes".

Each chapter starts off with a verse from the Bible and then a quotation from a famous (usually atheist or agnostic) person. This chapter contains a quotation from Anais Nin: "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."

This chapter discusses how the way you view life impacts your life. Your sometimes subconscious 'life metaphor' influences your life greatly... it determines your expectations, values, relationships, goals, and priorities. An example the book gives is that "if you think of your life as a party, your primary value in life will be having fun.... if you see life as a battle or a game, winning will be very important to you."

In order to fulfill God's purposes for your life, however, you need to adopt a biblical metaphor for life instead of one of the conventional, worldly ones.

Three metaphors the Bible gives:
* Life is a test
* Life is a trust
* Life is a temporary assignment.


I. Life on Earth is a Test
In the Bible, you can see that God is quite often testing people's character, faith, obedience, integrity, love, and loyalty. Abraham, Jacob, Adam and Eve, David, Joseph, Ruth, Ester, and daniel are just a few that were tested. All of life is a test... character is both developed and revealed by these tests. We don't always know the tests God is going to give us... God gives us pop quizzes (per se), but we can predict some from tests we read about in the Bible.

*this hit me hard* A very important test is how you act when you can't feel God's presence in your life. Sometimes God intentionally draws back, and we don't sense his closeness. "God withdrew from Hezekiah in order to test him and to see what was really in his heart" (II Chronicles 32:31, NLT). Hezekiah had been very close to God, but at a crucial point in his life God left him alone to test his character, to reveal a weakness, and to prepare him for more responsibility.

*** Okay... I'm taking a quick break from my summary of the highlights from my reading to explain why this hit me... WOW. I mean, I've heard Hezekiah's story before but I'd never really thought of God's tests this way. Before, I was just like, "Oh, God's just testing him"... but I'd never thought about WHY! Looking at Hezekiah's life in this way gives me new perspective on mine... I was at the highest point in my relationship with God during my senior year in high school. Then I came to college, and at first I still was running off the energy from that high point... but as the year drug on, I felt as though I couldn't hear God anymore... I believed that he did speak to people, but for some reason, I wasn't one of those people. Adjusting to college life was the cruicial time in my life... God was testing me... He wanted to reveal weaknesses in my life. And he did... I've been working on overcoming those weaknesses recently, and I think I'm making progress... so sometime soon, I'll be ready for more responsibility, just like Hezekiah! --- Now back to your regularly scheduled blog ***

James 1:12, GWT: "Blessed are those who endure when they're tested. When they pass the test, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him."


II. Life on Earth is a Trust
God is the owner of everyone and everything on earth... therefore, we never really own anything on earth; everything is on loan to us from God. The first job God gave humans was to take care of his stuff here on Earth. And that's still part of our purpose today. Our culture says that if you don't own it, you won't take care of it. But as Christians, we are to live by a higher standard: "Because God owns it, I MUST take the best care of it that I can."

I Corinthians 4:2 NCV: "Those who are trusted with something valuable must show they are worthy of trust."

Everything you do has eternal implications... if you treat everything as a loan from God, he promises three rewards:
* you will be given His affirmation -- "well done, good and faithful servant"
* you will receive a 'promotion' and be given more responsibility in heaven. -- "I will put you in charge of many things"
* and finally you'll be honored with a celebration -- "Come and share your master's happiness"

"From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted wiht much, much more will be asked." -- Luke 12:48b NIV

"Unless you are faithful in small matters, you won't be faithful in large ones." -- Luke 16:10a NLT


III. Life on Earth is a temporary assignment.
Compared with eternity, life is extremely short. And Earth is only a temporary residence. God is very blunt about the dangers of living for the 'here and now' and living by the ways of the world. When we toy around withe the temptations of this world, its spiritual adultery... "You're cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way." (James 4:4, Msg)

We're warned not to get attached to the things around us here on Earth because it is all temporary. It says in I Corinthians 7:21 (NLT): "Those in frequent contact with the things of the world should make good use of them without becoming attached to them, for this world and all it contains will pass away."

In order to keep us from becoming too attached to Earth, God allows us to feel a significant amount of discontent and dissatisfaction in life. There will be happy times while living on Earth, of course, but none even comes close to comparing for what God has planned for us in Heaven. We should use Eternal values (rather than temporal ones) in making decisions... Because the end of life is not the End! The greatest heroes of faith in God's yese are those who treat this life as a temporary assignment and serve faithfully, expecting their promised reward in eternity... we see that explained in Hebrews 11!

---

Anyway, that's about all I have for now... I'm caught up again in my reading. And I'll probably be posting more insights I find as I read more in the coming weeks.

Purpose
So life in Cincy's going well... Sorry for the hiatus and lack of posts, but life's busy (I think I said that last time I posted, but that's just the way it is).

Anyway, this morning I went to church for the first time since I've been in Cincinnati. This week, one of the other co-ops was telling me about where he's gone to church a few times while he's been up here, so since I woke up at 7:30 I decided to go check it out. They actually have 4 services, all of which have a different style. I went to the traditional service, but they also have a typical contemporary style service with a praise band and all, a skit/themed service, and an evening service that's kinda like a coffee-house style with an alternitive band. The cool part is that every service has the same message, just presented in different manners (from what I'm aware of).

Anyway, the whole church has just started this 40-day study based on the book A Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren... I really liked what I learned of this study from just today....

Today's message was meant to help answer the question "What on Earth am I here for?" The pastor started off by showing a clip from the movie signs... its where Mel Gibson's brother (or whoever he is) asks "Do you think this is the end of the world?" Mel Gibson's character responds by saying that there are two types of people... one type believes everything happens for a reason and the other type just believes it happened due to luck.

The message went on to answer 'life's 3 greatest questions'...

1. Why Am I alive?
Proverbs 16:4a says that the Lord has made EVERYTHING for his own purpose. God is in control... it's not about me.
Ephesians 1:4 talks about the fact that God desied to make us as the focus of his love and to buy us back in the death of his son.
I was created to love and be loved by God.

2. Does my life Matter?
Important scripture: Isaiah 49:4a, II Corinthians 5:1
If there is no meaning to what we do, it leads to despair.
There are 3 levels of life....
* SURVIVAL = just getting by; symptom - living for the weekend
* SUCCESS = not feeling fulfilled
* SIGNIFICANCE = knowing why you're alive; know purpose
God loves us so much that he wants us forever. And nothing goes unnoticed by Him.
I WAS MADE TO LAST FOREVER WITH GOD.

3. What is my purpose?
"Unless you assume the existence of God, the question of life's meaning and purpose is irrelevant." -- Bernard Russell.
If you don't know the purpose for something, you're likely to misuse it. The best way to learn the purpose is to ask the creator or read the users manual.
IMPORTANT SCRIPTURE: Proverbs 10:19, Acts 10:35, Colossians 1:16
It's never too late to be who you might have been.
I FIND MY PURPOSE GETTING TO KNOW GOD.


Anyway, I found the service very enlightening so I went out and got the book and am going to go try and go through it.... I'll try and update this more often as I go through this book.