Life Without Purpose is Just an Experience - Bravester

Life without purpose is just an experience.  Ponder that for a while.

If there ever was a man’s life that had purpose it was Indiana Jones.  His career was a college professor but his purpose was to find the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail.  Because of his purpose, his life as a college professor had meaning plus he had all kinds of adventures facing snakes and men with swinging swords that would shape him. 

Then there is Batman.  By day he was just a wealthy millionaire named Bruce Wayne.  But his purpose is to protect Gotham City from crime and that’s when he would become Batman.  His purpose gave meaning to his life and he was able to use his millions for good as well using all hose bat-gadgets.  Here was a millionaire with integrity because his purpose shaped him.

Okay, I realize that these are fictional, Hollywood characters.  So let’s take a look at our heroes.  Billy Graham had a purpose and that purpose has led him to see multitudes saved as well as being by the bedside of many great and dying former presidents and other world leaders.  Did you know that before Kim II-Syung died, the Communist “president” of North Korea until around a year ago, that he summoned Billy Graham to come share the gospel with him?  Billy Graham paid a couple of visits to the dying dictator and now only God knows if he repented of his terrible past.  What a purpose!

Bill Wilson is the pastor of Metro Assembly of God in Brooklyn, New York.  It is a church of 10,000 plus children who live in ghetto-type situations who have found joy as well as Jesus through a man who has dedicated his life to these children.  Bill Wilson is a man who’s mother left him sitting on a culvert at the age of 14 never to be heard from again.  He could have ended up like so many other children had but there was another man, Wayne Pitts, a young pastor, who had a purpose.  This man and his wife gave Bill a home and showed him what a loving relationship he could have with Jesus.  From there he found a purpose for his life and has literally brought life and hope to thousands of children who live without hope.

Ron Luce and his wife Katie thought their purpose was to be missionaries.  Yet while they were on their first short-term assignment they felt a call to raise up American teenagers to do mission work.  With initial doubt that teenagers couldn’t do much in the mission world, Ron started Teen Mania.  Just last year along, 1,750 youth and teen leaders went on summer missions, 84,509 nationals accepted Jesus as their Saviour, and more than 400,000 heard the gospel.

Then there are heroes of days gone by:  Martin Luther King, Jr., Dawson Trotman, John Wycliffe, Martin Luther.  Even further back there were twelve ordinary men living ordinary lives until they met a man who gave them a purpose.  Eleven of those twelve disciples found a purpose that changed the world—and their lives.

For me, my purpose is to be Jesus-with-skin-on to students at Godwin Middle School, the school I substitute teach at and the place I feel God has called this evangelist to pastor.  The ministry of Wild Frontier comes after that.  Just recently, through a mixture of medication and a very bad dentist experience ( a dumb but true story), I found myself so depressed that I felt I had no reason to get up that morning.  That is until I realized I had to be at basketball games for these students.  I knew I had to be there because some of their own parents wouldn’t be there and so they could see that I really do believe in their potential.  If you could just see their faces—some don’t understand or have very little comprehension of such love.

Of course with purposes, we all have times of rest and a balanced life.  Indiana Jones wasn’t always hunting for lost treasure and Batman did lead a normal life as Bruce wayne.  Oh yes, these are fictional characters again.  Billy Graham does go home to his home in North Carolina.  The same with Bill Wilson in New York and Ron Luce in Tulsa.

What is your purpose?  I could assume because you are receiving this it has something to do with ministry to teenagers but maybe not.  Do you know?

Do your teenagers know?  Do they know that their lives have purpose?  Or are they going from experience to experience.  Let me repeat that.  Or are they going from experience to experience?

We need to teach them this. This is Wild Frontier living—“Every other human being has no choice but to bow to their human limitations.  Only believers can draw upon God’s supernatural power to live beyond their limits.”  There are countless numbers of teenagers out there who are living beyond their limits because they know their God and their purpose.  We just don’t hear about them because there are no books or magazine articles written about them.  We need to teach our teens this.  It takes them out of that roller-coaster Christian life that so many of them lead.  What I wouldn’t give to have some youth like that with me at Godwin Middle.  Maybe your youth could fill that need at their school.

Life without purpose is just an experience.  Teach and live this principle.