Yesterday while I was in conversation with a friend the topic of purpose came up. The topic actually came up briefly, but the concept lingered long in my mind afterward. I began to think about what it means to be purposeful and ask myself some hard questions around this. For example, “Dane, are you being purposeful and deliberate in your attempts to know God?”.

To be honest, the man in the mirror answer was not that great and gaps were found. When I look at the men and women who achieved greatness it clearly shows that it did not occur by happenstance. They obtained  their accomplishments by being deliberate and calculated. They set themselves a roadmap and pushed to, and through each junction until the journey came to its end.

I remember as a young man in my teens I also had my roadmap, as I am sure many of us had. The plan was to finish school and get my bachelor’s degree, get a good job and work hard, start to save money, purchase a house then get married (not necessarily in that order 😊). Everything was laid out as how I felt it should unfold and I purposely worked towards it. This was my goal because having a “good life” was important to me.  

The aforementioned not only applies to life in general but almost anything we want to accomplish. For instance, those of you who might have had challenges with your weight and undertook a weight loss program or knew someone who lost weight can attest to the process. The person who is commencing weight loss spends time in selecting the best weight loss program for themselves,  adjusts their diet accordingly, carves out time to engage in intense exercise, floods their mind with weight loss literature,  and sometimes gets new likeminded friends to form a fraternity. Everything is carefully planned in order to get the best results in the end. Everything is purposeful!

But for some reason when it comes to the things of God we can be a bit laidback and lackadaisical at times.  We seem to think that the “good life” we want in God can be achieved without an intentional plan of action which is fueled by a purposeful mind. Why apply a methodical approach to everything earthly but use an ad hoc system for the heavenly?

God not only blesses and honours prayer but he honours principles.  If we apply ourselves to the principle of being purposeful regarding the things of God we will see how we will rise in Him and He will rise in us!

Using the life of our beloved Jesus as an example. He studied and was schooled in God’s word early, so much so he was teaching at 12 years of age. He then moved to getting 12 disciples to support Him on this journey, he often pulled away early on mornings to pray by himself and added fasting to His prayer. He went in the synagogue, He went in homes, He walked the streets and open fields proving he was intentional and purposeful with ALL His actions and where He placed Himself.    

Today I want us to pull back and do some self-reflection as to how deliberate and purposeful we are with building our personal walk with God. Are we carving out set times daily to read His word and have devotions with Him, are we using opportunities daily to witness to other’s about God’s goodness (commit to witnessing to one person per day), are we using our income to share and support others within our environment (those who refresh others will be refreshed Proverbs 11:25)?

Habakkuk 2:2 2 “And the Lord answered me, and said,
Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables,
that he may run that readeth it”.

Lets spend a moment today after reflection and write down the steps we need to take to be purposeful in running towards our God. The world is getting crazier and more unpredictable especially with Covid19. We cannot take this lying down, but  we have to be deliberate in taking steps to keep the distance between us and God as short as possible.

PS: Dane Miller was last seen in a quiet corner with pen and paper writing down the key steps to take to be more purposeful in the Lord.

Your Brother in the Lord,

Dane Miller | Author

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