As you can imagine, with me having 4 daughters, there is no shortage of drama in our house. Whether it is good or bad, there always seems to be something going on and it is usually happening in a dramatic fashion. A perfect example of this happened just last week.
My 6 year old daughter came home with a new family pet. She went on a run with my wife (technically, my wife was running while our daughter was scooting) and our little bug lover found a grasshopper. She named this grasshopper that she thinks is a cricket, “Chirp.” She excitedly came bursting in the door right in the middle of my 4 year old telling me for the 10th time, “She always get to go for a run with Mommy? I NEVER get to do anything fun!” My four year old was not happy to be interrupted by her sister that always gets to have fun, especially when she was yelling, “Daddy, Daddy…Look what I found on my run with Mommy…It’s a cricket!” “I NEVER get to find crickets” cried my 4 year old. To try to calm her down I mistakenly suggested , “Why don’t you go look at your sister’s cricket?”
Well after about five more minutes of whining, she agreed. This made me happy because I was finally going to get to relax and watch the game. She went out in the backyard where my six year old now had Chirp in a covered cup with some leaves and grass in it. As soon as she lifted the lid of Chirp’s makeshift cage, he flew out of the cup and directly into my 4 year old’s hair. I heard a loud scream and ran out to check on them, “What happened???” I asked. My six year old started to explain, “I lifted the lid to show her Chirp and he flew right into her hair. It was an accident!” My four year old yelled her usual, “It wasn’t an accident…she did it on perrrvis!”
I think she might have been right. My six year old is pretty bright and I’m sure she has spent at least half of her life learning the insect mind control technique. It all just paid off when she used the force to get her “cricket” to attack her sister. Makes sense to me…I think it really was on perrrvis.
Perrrvis…er…purpose seems to be playing a big part in my life right now. My wife and I are in a small group in our church that is studying, “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren. If you are not familiar with it, you can check out www.purposedriven.com for more information. Come to think of it, if you don’t know who Rick Warren is you must be that same cave dwelling person who didn’t know who Ned Flanders was either. Rick Warren is probably the only Christian alive more famous that Ned Flanders (however Rick joins me in not being able to hold a candle to Ned in the ripped abs category).
Anyway, the book basically explores why we are here. It answers the questions of: What is our purpose for living? Is this life all there is? What is the best way for me to be spending it? How do I develop closer friendships? And more importantly, how do I deepen my relationship with God? It’s not a self-help book as even the first sentence of the book is very telling. It simply says, “It is not about you.”
Purpose. It is such an important thing, yet it seems to elude so many of us. We get busy and just start going through the motions. One day turns into the next, then a year or two passes, and then the next thing you know you are a fat blogger looking for the meaning of life in a twinkie. Although we are still living, a better description would be that we are merely existing. We’re too busy to be living with any kind of real purpose.
I heard another Pastor discussing this issue on the radio this week. He passed my broadcast evangelist test (basically, if they say “Jesus” they want to teach but if they “JEEZus” they want to leach), so I was listening to what he had to say. He was talking about how when a farmer separates a chicken from his head and how the chicken continues to run in every direction. That’s us… we’re chickens (okay, I might be a cow, but the rest of you are chickens). We get separated from our head (God) and we run around and get very busy. At work, at school, at the malls, and even at our homes and our churches, we’re busy chickens living without perrrvis.
So, I want to pray. I want to pray for me and I want to pray for you. I just want to pray that we’ll remember that it is God who formed us in the womb, and it is God that gave us life. Since he is the one that gave us life, we should be living for him. That should be our purpose. And if we get too busy and forget this, I pray that he sends a whole swarm of Chirps to remind us. Amen.
