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

A Kingdom of nobles

“For God is not merely mending, not simply restoring a status quo.
Redeemed humanity is to be something more glorious than unfallen humanity.”

– C.S. Lewis

As ironic as it is, Christians (those who participate in a Kingdom) have largely lost the concept of  nobility.

Perhaps the notion of nobility got lost when the the last knights and ladies of the Middle Ages died off. Or perhaps we've lost the idea of nobility because we've lost a part of the Gospel itself.  What I mean is this:  In our attempts to be 'authentic' to each other, the world and to God, we've not only recognized the depths of our sin, we've decided that our selves are synonymous with those foul places.

Yet Scripture has stated otherwise:

"But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart."
-- Luke 8:15

Something better now defines us:  something stronger, regal and resplendent.  This transformation wasn't a mere brushing-up, nor a tinkering with the old in order to improve it.  It was something wholly different:  a bestowing of a fundamentally different nature -- supernatural supplanting natural.

Does the idea of Christian nobility sound too prideful for us? Are we so used to living in the mud of false humility that we cannot receive the more substantial redemption he is offering?

In C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, the children who become allies of the great Lion discover what they were meant for all along, as Aslan renames them in order to reveal their true natures:

And Aslan gave the children each a new name:

• Peter will be known now as, "King Peter the Magnificent."
• Susan will be called, "Queen Susan the Gentle."
• Edmund will be known as, "King Edmund the Just."
• Lucy will be called, "Queen Lucy the Valiant."

Whitney Young once said, "The truth is that there is nothing noble in being superior to somebody else. The only real nobility is in being superior to your former self." Through the strong rescue of Jesus, you are no longer this "former self" -- no matter how things appear to you. As C.S. Lewis reminds us,

“For God is not merely mending, not simply restoring a status quo. Redeemed humanity is to be something more glorious than unfallen humanity.”

That is to say, your new and noble glory surpasses the goodness and character of Adam and Eve -- before they fell.  Through his transforming rescue in you, our Lord has out-done himself again.