On Purpose

Two weeks ago a guy who attends a UNC Bible Study with me on Thursday afternoons on campus died of a blod clot. He was in his late 70s and had been expecting it for a while, but it still shook up the men of the study who had known and worked with Jessie for years in the Chapel Hill community. As the group gathered today for the first time since his funeral, it was great to hear stories of how Jesse had lived on purpose. He worked for years in this community in hardware and was one of those guys who knew everyone and was known by everyone. Everything he did he did with purpose and passion, whether it be dominating the golf course still in his 70s or being committed to his family or bringing men to this weekly Bible study.

As folks were reflecting, one man recounted how just 2 weeks ago he and another had the chance to really talk to Jesse at Bible study for the first time - to hear his story his experiences. Todd reflected that God had put he and the other gentleman next to Jesse at that time so that they could learn from this great man in his final days.

It struck me how much we do is done 'on purpose'.' Often times we like to think that we determine that purpose, but times like that allow you to see just how much purpose God guides that purpose for us.

As someone who loves history, tradition, and being around people who have both - it was great to get to know Jesse a little in the few short weeks I had the chance to talk to him. It's great to see people who give so much to one community over one period of time as they are able to see those purposes play out over generations. There is little doubt that Chapel Hill will miss Jesse, but there is no doubt that God's purposes for His life were not played out.

As our Bible study leader Danny led us in Scripture today he talked about being a servant leader, and how many are called to lead for God's kingdom, but sadly few do. He talked about how the 'harvest is plenty, but the workers are few.'

Are you living On Purpose today?

Danny closed our time by talking about a friend of his, former basketball great Pete Maravich, who accepted Christ with only three years left in his life. In those three years he did some dynamic things for the Lord - truly living on purpose. He always recounted, though, that throughout all of the fame and fortune basketball brought him people would talk to him about his investments, what cars to buy, what things to do - but no one ever told him about the peace, hope and joy that Jesus Christ offered.

Are we willing to sit on the sidelines while potential kingdom builders like Pistol Pete are able to walk through life without knowing true life, or will we live our lives On Purpose, and invite others to do the same?

Thoughts...

Some random thoughts as I spend hour 2 sitting in a line waiting to reserve a room for Greek IMPACT for NEXT semester (seriously, why is campus space this critical on a campus this large?):

Intense Determination - I confess, I haven't been the biggest Tiger Woods fan over the years. He kind of goes against my anti-popularity movement as everyone loves Tiger. Plus I've always been a big Phil Mickleson fan and you can't love Lefty and Tiger both, it's almost like liking both Duke & Carolina, IU & Purdue, anyone & the Yankees, etc. But this weekend may have changed my mind. If you watched the PGA Championship @ Medinah you probably witnessed one of the greatest individual feats in the history of solo sport. Tiger just dominated the last 2 days in a way that we should all hope to dominate in our own work settings. He was intense in his determination, his grit and his focus. He was a picture of what I wish our walks of faith looked like. Tied for the lead going into the final day, he accepted nothing less than his best effort. As he pulled away from the field, 6 strokes at one point, he still didn't back off - didn't become complacent a bit. On 16 I think it was his drive went arwy, ending his chances of a majors record 20-under-par. Tiger wasn't focused on personal glory, however, just a solid victory in the task at hand and hit two solid recovery shots to maintain his lead. You had to watch it to truly appreciate the mentality that Tiger used to channel everything he had into his game. A bad shot was a forgotten shot. A solid shot was celebrated and then moved past. His focus was so determined. Oh that we could display that same focus in our jobs, our ministries, our hobbies.

Buzz - Andy Stanley, a pastor in Atlanta, talks about creating 'buzz' as a great way to establish and maintain momentum - in a job, a ministry, a life goal, etc. As I walked on Carolina's campus yesterday I realized what this 'buzz' is all about. Thousands of students running around campus, excited to see each other, glad to be back at Carolina, nervous about coming here for the first time. There was that air of excitement that a new year brings. It was a similar buzz to one that the GI leaders demonstrated at our vision team retreat 2 weekends ago. Our leaders had such an excitement for this new season of GI. The planning was excellent, the community-building fruitful and the free time tons of fun. I truly felt the Lord was in the place that we were and that His hand was over our time together. The prayer now, of course, is maintaining the momentum we created that weekend while students basically go into 2 long and hectic weeks of rush.

Wild - The church that Kim and I have been checking out continues to totally jive with my ever-developing theology and faith life. The pastor talked about how we were basically 'born to be wild,' untamed and free in our fath. He talked about how often the church gives us a different picture of God's hopes for us - that we'd be domesticated, docile and ho hum or that we'd become freaky televangelists. He used the examples of Jesus' use of children as models for how we are to live a life of humilty, teachibility and dependibilty. Children are wild, untamed, and follow God in the simplest way possible (for more on this - check out Erwin McManus' book The Barbarian Way). THANK YOU Dr. Kelly for saying what we've been talking about in GI for years. "The glory of God is man fully alive," said St. Iraneaus in the early days, and it should be as relevant today as it was back then.

This got me thinking - all three phrases I used today - Intense Determination, Buzz and Wild - at some point have been rejected by people of faith around me as illegitamate postures for a true Christ follower to pursue. If this has happened to me, I wonder how many folks around us (especially in the south) have been turned off from the faith, or better yet domesticated, because they think they cannot pursue their passions in the name of Jesus. If Jesus did indeed "come so that you may have life and have it to the full," (John 10:10), shouldn't these words be at the forefront of how we live and act out our faith on a daily basis?

Lost

Our God works in mysterious ways. Two months ago He gave me a vision of what our GI Monday Nights would be based upon in the Fall when my friend, colleague and former student Dusty threw out the idea of 'Lost' based on the hit tv show that many students watch. It seemed to have great potential and fit our audience well, so I decided to run with it. There were periods when I doubted it would be a good fit - most of my vision team knows little about the show and I was having a real hard time coming up with content.

Then this week, it all came together. And it's amazing how God often teaches you that the very things you spend all your time searching for are often right there in front of you.

It started with a Scripture search of the word 'lost' (thanks to gospelcom.net). Lots of references, few of them helpful. That was followed by a search of song lyrics containing the word 'lost'. Also largely helpless, although it did lead to some very interesting (mostly rap and really bad folk), intriguing yet dated (Cindi Lauper, Sting) and possible (Switchfoot, Ben Harper, Coldplay) song results.

But it still wasn't clicking.

Then it started to fall into place. It began with an internal urge late on a Friday night for one of my favorite songs - Coldplay's "Swallowed by the Sea." After listening to the words for a good 45 minutes, the vision was beginning to form. And, believe it or not, it came from the exact place I left our GI Monday nights at the end of last semester:

Are the streets you're walking on, a thousand houses long? Well that's where I belong, and you belong with me, not swallowed by the sea.

Wow, I'm not sure if Chris Martin was trying to hit the gospel on the head, but he did it in my mind.

Then on Sunday morning, the final piece fell into place. Kim and i went to a new church - New Hope - for the first time, ironically on their first day in a new building. The pastor was talking about 'Signs' and how they clog and mess with our minds. He talked about our need for clarity and how we are lost without the grace and hope that the Lord offers. He shaped his talk around Luke 15 - the prodigal son, probably my favorite and most taught part of Scripture.

We are all on a journey and the deeper we go into that journey, the more hopelessly lost we become without Christ as our guide.....

Reboot

After nearly three weeks of frustration, my laptop finally arrived back to my office on Saturday afternoon (well, actually I had to go pick it up from DHL, but at that point I was more than happy to doso). Turns out that if you spill beer on your computer and it messes with your motherboard the warranty doesn’t so much apply. Shocking, I know, but it was worth a shot. I think that as retribution for my idiocy, Dell decided to ‘forget’ to mail my computer back for almost a week (they actually admitted to that after about 15 redirected phone calls).

At any rate it is back and is, for the moment, booting and rebooting just fine. And even if it doesn’t I’m just ok with that for now, because at least I have it back.

I wonder if God feels the same way about us sometimes? How often do we do something stupid, or just mess up without really realizing it, and then go ‘on the fritz’ for a while? Often times we are ashamed to keep trying with God, other times we just go through periods of not caring. So we, in a sense, go into this blackout phase with God where he just isn’t visible or apparent in our lives. Sometimes this can look like willful and wanton neglect and rebellion, other times it can just be spiritual indifference – often I think it’s somewhere in the middle.

As I drove home from church on Sunday morning, wondering how in the heck it was August and where July went, I realized that I had basically spent a month in this blackout phase. Yeah there were some good quiet times, I read some good books and had some good spiritual conversations, but for the most part I floated through July in some sort of opaque oblivion to what was going on immediately around me or was in my immediate future.

But like my laptop, when I consciously returned over the last week, it has been refreshing to find that God doesn’t care how we reboot, as long as we do reboot. Who knows, maybe some time in the wilderness is a good thing – afterall it worked pretty well for Jesus, David, Moses and others. But I tell you what, it definitely feels better to be back fully in God’s presence, even if it takes a little longer than usual to get booted up in the morning sometimes.

I’ll be in meetings all this week. It’ll be a stark contrast and, really, an opportunity to learn more about myself. If you know me at all, you know that I like to say that I ‘hate meetings.’ Just hate ‘em. Hate going to them, hate paying attention, hate sitting down for so long, hate talking about ‘how I feel,’ etc, etc. But at the same time that I am not looking forward to my staff meetings, I am so looking forward to my leadership meeting at the beach at the end of the week. Stay tuned for an interesting psychological study that I’m sure will reveal some level of selfishness, control and engagement issues for me.

Pressing on to be Godly, without being so religious…..