First uncompleted draft...purpose or position

Ok, so you have been asking what I've been thinking and writing about lately...well, this isn't finished, it's dry, it's long and it's incomplete...but I'm posting it cause you've been bugging me Laura!


There are times in life when we are forced to evaluate where we are, where we've been and where we are going. I am fascinated by motivation and why people make the choices they make; why I make the choices I make. Sometimes it's driven by a sense of purpose, sometimes it's driven by a sense of security, sometimes it's driven by what comes the easiest. It seems as if what drives a person's choices is unlimited however, I believe it really falls into two categories: Purpose or Position.

We start a project or a goal or a life choice rooted and clearly focused; excited by purpose and firmly plant our feet where we believe we should be. But like standing at the edge of the ocean while the tide changes, we can suddenly be surprised when we finally look down and realize our feet don't align with where they had originally been planted. The tide has either passed us up and we see our feet covered in sand and water and find ourselves standing knee deep in water surrounded by no one or the tide has gone out and we are left standing in the sand pretending we are still in the ocean.

Often our original starting point, our original motivation does not stay the same. So many times we find ourselves months or years or even decades into a life choice only to look back and realize that we are no longer on the same path we set out on. Something has changed, the road took a turn or our direction has subtly yet drastically changed. Somewhere in the work of it all, in the day to day decisions, in the small crisis' that demand our attention, in the monotony we will discover that we have swapped our original intent with something different. Although this swap was intended, it wasn't a stated goal or a set of prescribed steps; it was a gradual, slow, seemingly innocent series of choices that have resulted in our taking control of our own lives.

Now, taking control of our own lives seems like a lofty and well intentioned goal. Certainly Oprah and the current pop psychologist of the day would overwhelmingly approve of taking destiny into our own hands. Everywhere you turn you are told loudly or subtly that you are the keeper of your fortune, that you make are the only one who can make things happen in your own life. It is easy to buy into this philosophy because we love to control things. According to The Secret, if you don’t want “it” you don’t get “it” however, by believing hard enough “it” it will happen for you. This belief will grant you fortune, relationship, power or position. In this vein of thinking, everything is controlled by you for the good or the bad. At first glance it is incredibly attractive but deeper study will reveal that you are the keeper of your position and if your position is horrible then you are horrible.

As Christians, we openly reject books like The Secret. We laugh at the ideas presented and deem ourselves above such philosophy…more enlightened and protected from such ideas. It is my argument that this type of thinking can and does slowly grow into our seemingly iron clad Christianity and if we are not intentional about weeding it out it will overshadow our belief in God’s will for our lives until we have been overtaken by our own will for our lives while we shun God’s will. Again, it is intentional but it is not overt: the danger of this philosophy is it’s subtlety.

When does this happen? I believe it happens when we exchange position for purpose. We believe that God the Father places calls on our lives. As Christians, we seek to know His will for us. We spend many hours in prayer and conversation with others searching out where He wants us to be. We hear calls from God. We follow those calls to places we would not ordinarily go. We believe in his Sovereignty and in his personal involvement in our lives; like Moses who followed God’s call into Egypt or David who took his position of King, like John the Baptist who baptized those in the spirit, or Jesus who died on the cross.