BTH Blog
Purpose
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I remember hearing a story about the men in Nazi concentration camps having to dig a ditch one day and then return the day next day and fill it back in. They were forced to do this over and over again, and something about the nature of this task was cruelly efficient in breaking their spirits.
Arthur summed it up well in a recent seminar. He said: “Powerlessness plus futility is lethal.”
Powerlessness is anathema to our human psyche. We were wired for dominion, and we know it, so any kind of powerlessness causes a reaction. A sense of futility can quickly follow, even if it is not forced upon us like it was on the men in the concentration camp. It is where our emotions go. When we can’t change the situation, we begin to feel like there is no point, no reason to fight, nothing we can do. We have to choose to guard ourselves against it.
There is worldwide powerlessness going on right now. For many of us, it is on more levels than we have experienced before. The situation is made worse by the fact that we have no idea when it will end or what the world will look like a year from now. There is powerlessness and uncertainty.
How do we sustain ourselves against the futility?
By finding purpose.
We are in a snapshot of life right now. Granted, it is proving to be a much longer snapshot than any of us would like, but it is still a snapshot. The first thing we need to do is take a step back and look at the continuum. We need to find some threads from the past that will help us see the purpose in the present. That is how we can partner with God as He builds into our future.
First we look at our own lives. A major thread of the continuum of life is the exercises God takes us through to build something into us or develop our design. When did He take you to the gym? What did He build in you that you needed somewhere in the future? What did it tell you about your design? Is it possible that He is doing the same thing now? Perhaps you can identify a process leading up to now and the particular challenges you are facing. Maybe you can connect the dots or ask Him to help you connect the dots so that you can see the gym you are in right now. Ask Him to show what He is building, and why. And if you still don’t know, can you trust that there is something? Can you look back and see that He did it before, and you needed what He built, and now He might be doing the same thing? He doesn’t always tell us what the future will hold. But we can still look for the opportunities to leverage the present as a way to grow, or learn, or develop.
A second thread that you can look for is revelation. What new thing could He want to show you right now? Something new about Him? Something new about yourself, or your family, or your relationship with the created world? I just recently had an opportunity to practice that kind of purpose finding exercise. We had a tornado in the town where I live and it ripped up several trees in my backyard. I rent the house I live in, and the landlord was frustratingly slow in responding. I couldn’t do anything about it – other than grieve over the damage and the mess. But yet I could! I realized that the delay created a scenario I hadn’t experienced before, and that is processing new trauma on the land. Processing it with the land. This was an opportunity for a new experience, new revelation. Even though I was still powerless to change the condition of the backyard, I could push back against the futility by partnering with God to receive new revelation that was, essentially, available to me BECAUSE of the situation.
So, instead of focusing on what isn’t flowing or isn’t happening, look for the new. What new season of your journey is God wanting to take you on right now? What does He want to show you now that you will need in the future? How can you mine every possible new gem out of the circumstances of the present?
We can also use the continuum to emotionally engage with our past experiences with Him. What about His nature is a point of stability to you? Zoom out of the moment where everything feels like a washing machine turned on high speed, and savor those past experiences. Remind yourself that HE is the same God now that He was then, regardless of everything else around you. Accessing the past emotions can help stabilize how you feel in the present.
You might take some time to look back on some other challenging seasons in your life and see what value God brought out of them. I know that you are looking with 20-20 hindsight, but it can still give you confidence that He is doing the same thing now, even if you don’t know what He is building it for.
We can also take a step further back and look at the larger continuum of human history. We are in the Mercy Season of the church. Is God working to restore intimacy with people who have come to depend too much on themselves? Is He working to restore families? What is He doing regarding creation – specifically our bodies? Is there some kind of paradigm shift He is bringing? Or you can zoom still further out and look for patterns in different cultures, or throughout Scripture – or even just to anchor yourself in the reality that God is still in control and on the throne. This may be revealing some weak moorings in us, but He hasn’t budged an inch.
Fundamentally, and unchangingly, God is a God of purpose. THIS we know from Scripture and millennia of evidence. He is not capricious or cruel. Powerlessness will come and go in our lives, but we don’t have to fall prey to futility.
Arthur summed it up well in a recent seminar. He said: “Powerlessness plus futility is lethal.”
Powerlessness is anathema to our human psyche. We were wired for dominion, and we know it, so any kind of powerlessness causes a reaction. A sense of futility can quickly follow, even if it is not forced upon us like it was on the men in the concentration camp. It is where our emotions go. When we can’t change the situation, we begin to feel like there is no point, no reason to fight, nothing we can do. We have to choose to guard ourselves against it.
There is worldwide powerlessness going on right now. For many of us, it is on more levels than we have experienced before. The situation is made worse by the fact that we have no idea when it will end or what the world will look like a year from now. There is powerlessness and uncertainty.
How do we sustain ourselves against the futility?
By finding purpose.
We are in a snapshot of life right now. Granted, it is proving to be a much longer snapshot than any of us would like, but it is still a snapshot. The first thing we need to do is take a step back and look at the continuum. We need to find some threads from the past that will help us see the purpose in the present. That is how we can partner with God as He builds into our future.
First we look at our own lives. A major thread of the continuum of life is the exercises God takes us through to build something into us or develop our design. When did He take you to the gym? What did He build in you that you needed somewhere in the future? What did it tell you about your design? Is it possible that He is doing the same thing now? Perhaps you can identify a process leading up to now and the particular challenges you are facing. Maybe you can connect the dots or ask Him to help you connect the dots so that you can see the gym you are in right now. Ask Him to show what He is building, and why. And if you still don’t know, can you trust that there is something? Can you look back and see that He did it before, and you needed what He built, and now He might be doing the same thing? He doesn’t always tell us what the future will hold. But we can still look for the opportunities to leverage the present as a way to grow, or learn, or develop.
A second thread that you can look for is revelation. What new thing could He want to show you right now? Something new about Him? Something new about yourself, or your family, or your relationship with the created world? I just recently had an opportunity to practice that kind of purpose finding exercise. We had a tornado in the town where I live and it ripped up several trees in my backyard. I rent the house I live in, and the landlord was frustratingly slow in responding. I couldn’t do anything about it – other than grieve over the damage and the mess. But yet I could! I realized that the delay created a scenario I hadn’t experienced before, and that is processing new trauma on the land. Processing it with the land. This was an opportunity for a new experience, new revelation. Even though I was still powerless to change the condition of the backyard, I could push back against the futility by partnering with God to receive new revelation that was, essentially, available to me BECAUSE of the situation.
So, instead of focusing on what isn’t flowing or isn’t happening, look for the new. What new season of your journey is God wanting to take you on right now? What does He want to show you now that you will need in the future? How can you mine every possible new gem out of the circumstances of the present?
We can also use the continuum to emotionally engage with our past experiences with Him. What about His nature is a point of stability to you? Zoom out of the moment where everything feels like a washing machine turned on high speed, and savor those past experiences. Remind yourself that HE is the same God now that He was then, regardless of everything else around you. Accessing the past emotions can help stabilize how you feel in the present.
You might take some time to look back on some other challenging seasons in your life and see what value God brought out of them. I know that you are looking with 20-20 hindsight, but it can still give you confidence that He is doing the same thing now, even if you don’t know what He is building it for.
We can also take a step further back and look at the larger continuum of human history. We are in the Mercy Season of the church. Is God working to restore intimacy with people who have come to depend too much on themselves? Is He working to restore families? What is He doing regarding creation – specifically our bodies? Is there some kind of paradigm shift He is bringing? Or you can zoom still further out and look for patterns in different cultures, or throughout Scripture – or even just to anchor yourself in the reality that God is still in control and on the throne. This may be revealing some weak moorings in us, but He hasn’t budged an inch.
Fundamentally, and unchangingly, God is a God of purpose. THIS we know from Scripture and millennia of evidence. He is not capricious or cruel. Powerlessness will come and go in our lives, but we don’t have to fall prey to futility.