What inspired your first, “yes” to God?
Some of us came to God because we experienced or observed his love and goodness. It inspired us to worship him and follow him. Like Peter said to Jesus when he asked if they would leave him, “To who would we go? You have the words of eternal life!”
A few of us went on an intellectual journey and the evidence pointed us towards reason for faith in God. But somewhere on our journey we discovered it was the Holy Spirit that was leading us to encounter Jesus. We still needed help, as George McDonald said, “every time we think of God, it is the wooing of his Spirit drawing us to the Father.”
The majority of us recognized we were morally deficient, or had huge problems in our lives and needed some help. Our coming to God was an act of desperation. This is the first part of Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned…”
There are also those of us in the second category of Romans 3:23. We have “fallen short of the glory of God,” i.e., we need a higher power to live up to our potential. We are ashamed that we cannot rise high enough. We have this niggling feeling that we are off-purpose, like the super heroes of our Marvel comics. Our spirits aspire to something greater.
We all come to God because we at some level have need, need of a rescue. And just when we feel rescued, he asks more of us. Salvation rescue is more than just surrender to Love, though we must surrender. This is the beautiful mystery (and sometimes terror) of God: as a true son and daughter, he asks the impossible of us.
Our highest purpose is always attached to impossibility, something we can’t do outside of the assistance of heaven. I flee to God because I need him, and then I want to flee from him because he asks something too big from me!
So let’s confront this head on. To truly follow God is to embrace impossibilities. His faith is imparted to us at salvation, at the time of our surrender to Jesus. His faith is alive in us and demands something more.
When we were young and naive, or on those days we felt brave, we dreamed of achieving something greater, but now, today, the Holy Spirit asks it of us. The question for you is this: what is the exciting and terrifying thing is God asking of you? If you don’t know, are you open to finding out your purpose?
Chasing our purpose often begins with a small step forward, like forgiving someone and moving on, going back to college or getting a job. It may be praying God heals someone you meet on the street, or sharing Jesus.
Seeking to discover purpose will bring us to our inner design for God-sized dreams. To gain a dream, we must risk it all — like Jesus’ invitation to the rich young ruler, “Give everything you have to the poor and come follow me!”