MESSAGE BEARER MEMO
By Ryan Shaw
These bi-weekly memos are to provide encouragement, exhortation, and spiritual nourishment in the lives of those who have signed the Message Bearer Creed as you prepare to serve the Lord globally, and are influencing your peers with this vision.
Series Title: Stewarding The College and Beyond Years Wisely: Cultivating A Life Fully Devoted To God Now
...Through Cultivating Your Life Vision and Obtaining Mentors
While sitting in a teaching session of my church's school of ministry five years ago, Lou Engle spoke about possessing a personal life purpose. At one point in the presentation he stopped and asked rhetorically, "What is your life purpose?" We each had generic Christian answers, but no specifics. He challenged this in us and suggested we should have a burden and focus that we believed God had given if we expected to remain focused for God throughout life and be effective in ministry. We see this powerful reality exemplified historically in countless lives who were used of God in extraordinary ways.
What is a Life Purpose?
One of my professors from Fuller Seminary, Bobby Clinton, defines a life purpose as: "A burden like calling, a task or driving force or achievement, which motivates a person to fulfill something or to see something done." For many people, college is the ideal time to get the initial seeds of the vision concerning what God has called us to be about in life! He doesn't give us the whole picture all at once, for two reasons: first, because life wouldn't require any faith, which would be in direct opposition to what the Bible calls us to, and second, because what He showed us would probably scare us half to death.
Moving Toward a Life Purpose
The first step to becoming aware of a life purpose is to surrender oneself and one's desires in life to God and possess a willingness to be formed into the man or woman He has called us to be. It is not blind consideration or guesswork concerning what one is going to do with one's life. It is allowing Him to be Lord, the one who is in control.
Many of us, however, surrender to God, but then don't start moving in the direction when He begins stirring us in a particular way. We remain in the first step of surrender, when He calls us to the next step of discerning His call upon our lives and moving in a specific direction. In our postmodern generation that encourages us to keep our options open and consequently struggles with dedication, we need to receive direction from God, and then stick to it with perseverance. This in no way means he doesn't clarify and redirect us along the way, but if we're not moving, how can He do even this?
An illustration that helps us in this matter is that nobody can turn a parked car. In the same way, God can't direct a person who isn't moving in some direction. If we are truly submitted to God, He will get us into the right place at the right time once we start moving along the lines of the burden He has already given us. We all must make decisions regarding our life and ministry. The best way to do this is in light of our understanding of who God has made us to be and for what purpose He is shaping us (Clinton, p. 516).
Lou then challenged us to think about a life purpose and assigned us the task of creating a "Life Purpose Statement" according to what we knew God was calling us to do at that point in our lives. He reminded us that our life purpose might change in certain ways in the coming years but that what was in our hearts presently would most likely only grow stronger and clearer in the future, rather than revert the other way. He also gave some parameters, encouraging us to create our statement with focus, while keeping away from specifics like ministry names, specific churches, etc.
The Bible and church history is full of men and women who possessed a clear purpose in life that continually grew and to which they remained faithful. This helped them remain on target and not be swept away into jobs, roles, or concerns that were not relevant to the call and purpose that God had placed upon them. Circumstances might change, places of ministry might shift, but the heart and the convictions remain the same.
It's Your Turn
I want to invite you to sit down and write your own "Life Purpose Statement." What has God called you to be about in life and ministry? The things He has instilled in you already are markers that will help gauge this. What gets you excited regarding serving God? When serving in a ministry, what are the types of things you like doing best (e.g., leading worship, speaking, praying, set up and hospitality, greeting, etc.)? To what kinds of leaders or ministries are you most drawn and attracted? This might help identify the types of ministries in which you might one day participate. This is the "like-attracts-like" principle. Does your heart break for the homeless, for at-risk children, for child prostitutes in Southeast Asia, for the rich who are living empty lives, etc.? Do you have a hunger for more of God in your church, on your campus? These are simply start-up questions to get you thinking along these lines? Now is the time to choose to move in a direction that you sense God has put on your heart and to continually ask Him to unveil the next steps and clarify how to move forward.
A Key to Coming into Your Life Purpose
One of the ways that God uses to help accomplish the life purpose that He has invested in each of us is the use of mentors. Those people (usually older) in our lives who help us through a myriad of ways to move closer toward what the Lord has called us to be about. You probably have a preconceived idea of what you think a mentor is and does, but mentoring is a much broader experience then most of us recognize. For example, could a historical biography of someone who lived 100 years ago be a mentoring tool. If you have gleaned principles from their life then they are "mentoring" you through their life. How about someone you meet for the first time whom you share something with and they give you timely advice and counsel that helps give you direction, and then you never see them again. This person was a divine contact and mentored you to the next step.
The definition of a mentor is simple: one who gives empowers another by a transfer of resources. These resources can prove to be new habits, knowledge, skills, desires, values, connections to other people who can help, and the overall development of a person's potential. God will bring along various people into our lives who He can use to shape us and direct us to the work He has called us to. The challenge for many of us is that these mentors usually will not pursue us in a mentoring relationship. Most often, we will have to approach them and ask if they might be willing to engage in a mentoring relationship. This might take some initiative on your part but will prove fruitful to you if you do it.
God has set up His kingdom in such a way that we are to be interdependent. We need each other to accomplish the purposes He has put in our hearts. Mentors are critical to this process.
Prayer:
"Jesus, I long to be a person of purpose and focus that brings You the most glory possible in my lifetime. I do not want to float, even for one day, in my life and waste valuable time that You have given me to serve you and your kingdom purposes. I choose to turn away from my own selfish purposes, desires, and dreams and I embrace Your perfect ways and perfect plans for my life, which Your Word declares were written before the foundations of the world. Speak to me by Your Spirit regarding what You have placed within me. Open my eyes to grasp the seeds of purpose that You have invested in me. I ask that You would confirm this life purpose to me over the next weeks and months. Bring people across my path that speak words of confirmation to me. I ask for mentors who could teach me and open up valuable resources to me to help accomplish the life purpose You've put into me. Give me the confidence to pursue them and give me favor in their eyes. I love You Lord and commit my life afresh to You for Your global purposes!" .
Ryan Shaw
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