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Entries in mission (3)

Thursday
Feb182010

Welcome to Special Forces.

Whether you realize it or not, you've already accepted the invitation to join Special Ops.  The invitation came with the whole salvation package.  Both men and women are in this elite unit.  Each operator offers a unique set of skills for work behind enemy lines.  And please note:  I'm not using "Special Forces" as a metaphor ...

The Israeli Special Forces have some of the most elite counter-terrorist units in the world, and most difficult to get into.  In his book, The Brotherhood of Warriors, Aaron Cohen describes the Israeli Special Forces philosophy for placing individual soldiers in specific operations:

In their tireless search for individual strengths, the Israeli Special Forces are diametrically opposed to the U.S. NavySEALS and British SAS models, with their famous emphasis on instilling mulitdimentional, broad-based skills in all Special Forces operators.  In Israel, they don't try to mold everybody into all-purpose supercommandos or Hebrew-speaking versions of James Bond.  Almost from the outset at [Counter-Terrorism] School, the instructors start making talent-driven decisions to determine who should fulfill which missions.  Certain guys were physically suited to playing a woman or an old man; others delivered the Palestinian dialect so convincingly they could engage in more interactive undercover roles without ever tipping their hand;  guys with superior marksmanship or driving skills worked the perimeter without donning a fake beard or opening their mouths to speak Arabic...

Cohen ends with this: 


The Special Forces philosophy became: Cultivate individual strengths, look for natural talent.  Don't waste time and resources forcing a square peg into a round hole."

 

What unique set of strengths do you bring to the mission.  Can you look back over your story to see how God has been trying to call those strengths out?

Thursday
Dec032009

Seven quotes on 'CALLING'

Heart and callling are inextricably linked:  you can't know your calling without knowing the deep desires of your heart -- and believing that they are trustworthy.  Within your new heart lie desires God is awakening. Here are some quotes on 'calling:'

 

  • “For the most part, I do the thing which my own nature prompts me to do.  It is embarrassing to earn so much respect and love for it.”  -- Albert Einstein

  • “Progress is not created by contented people.”  -- Frank Tyger

  • “Man’s ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born.  And what is it that reason demands of him?  Something very easy – that he live in accordance with his own nature.”  (Seneca)

  • “The place God calls you to is the place where your deepest gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”   -- Frederick Buechner

  • "[Our] original shimmering self gets buried so deep we hardly live out of it at all . . . rather, we learn to live out of all the other selves which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather."   --Frederick Buechner

  • "What I do is me: For that, I came."  -- Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins
  • "What is in you that is so unique, that if you don't live with it, the Kingdom of God will live without it?"  -- Gary Barkalow, www.thenobleheart.com

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Listen to the podcast"A life of desire"

Listen to the podcast"Recovering our desire"

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How about you?  Do you have any quotes on calling/purpose you can share?

Tuesday
Aug252009

The pleasure of your purpose

I once asked someone how a person discovers their purpose. Let's face it, many people are stuck in jobs they despise, spending endless hours engaged in actities that mean almost nothing to them.  And they are hungry for more. 

The person I asked quoted Frederick Buechner (who is always good to quote) saying, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deepest gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

 

So what brings you a vitality of heart, so that when you are engaged in it, you "feel his pleasure" as the great Scottish runner, Eric Liddell, once said; and you feel your pleasure?  Where is your deep gladness, your raison d'etre? 

You must listen to your heart, but will find it very difficult to do so if you do not begin trusting the deep desires God has placed there.  After all, you have a new heart, and new set of desires that will guide you if you listen to them.  God has given you permission to do so.

 

Man's ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born.  And what is it that reason demands of him?  Something very easy - that he live in accordance with his own nature."
 - SENECA