The Ideal life

I have been doing a sermon series on living the ideal life, as if. I know that life is often far from ideal from one's perspective. What I am not talking about is the perfect life, but rather a life that has some meaning to each of us. I don't know about you but there are times that I struggle with the question, Why am I here? There are times that I have a better insight into the answer but there are still struggles that go on that raises the old doubts. So this sermon series that is based on our mission statement in our church is of importance for me as well as any others.

Tomorrow I will be talking about discovering our purpose which is the second item of the sermon series. The first dealt with identifying our gifts. I was looking over some of the resources that I plan to use in the sermon which I base out of Jeremiah's call to being a prophet for the Lord. Most of the call stories in Scripture tend to have those called seriously reluctant to do what God asks. They often offer many objections for this call. Somehow I find that comforting for myself. It helps me realize that struggling with purpose and meaning is important and not just to be minimized in our lives. So when we struggle or doubt our purpose it is not something to be ashamed of or avoided. Rather it is something to continue to reflect, pray, and continue to discover. Victor Frankl in his book Man's Search for Meaning states that meaning comes from the life situations that we face. These are constantly changing and that we are to change to meet those expectations. "It does not matter what we expect from life, but rather what life expected from us." Frankl does not believe that purpose or meaning in life can be generalized but that it is real and concrete for each of us individually. Again I find that important in my reflections on call and on my relationship with God. God calls me to become who God wants me to be and to use my gifts for God's purpose. No one else is uniquely qualified to do what I can do. Likewise there are others equally qualified to do what they do. When we are able to work together we create the body of Christ more fully. In my credo at seminary, I called this the gestalt of God.

In all of my resources, what each author had to say was that love if what makes a difference in our world and in our lives. Jesus' love for us is our salvation. My use of my gifts, my purpose is to share that love with others using the unique talents that I have. So it is true of you. We are called to do this with each other in relationship with God and those whom God has created. God did not make a mistake creating us. We need to put our trust in the Divine's aim for all of creation.