Day 1: It all starts with God

I have an older sister named Stacy (pictured to your right). Growing up, we sure knew how to fight! Stacy and I were great at fighting because we knew how to push each other’s 'hot buttons'. We would push and push those buttons until one of us would blow up and look really bad in front of our mom! Haha. (I’m sorry to say, I was usually the one with the short fuse.) But my ‘hot button’ was always my dear sister calling me ‘selfish’. I could go on and on about why I hated being called that particular word, but I will spare you the whiney details. (You can thank me later!)

But I will tell you the first sentence in Nathaniel and my new Bible study The Purpose Drive Life was “It’s not about you.”

Not again.

It’s not about me? My purpose is not about me? What?!

So I read on.

“It’s far greater than your family, your career or even your wildest dreams and ambitions (Uh, do I ever consider things outside these three categories? Rarely!). If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by His purpose and for His purpose.”

Colossians 1:16 (Msg)
“For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible… everything got started in Him and finds its purpose in Him.”

Here is an analogy the book used: If you were given a new invention without talking with the creator or reading the owner’s manual, you wouldn’t know what the invention was for.

That made me think how much time and effort a creator has to put into his creation.

For example, I love to read. But when I read a book, I never think, “Man, this author sure does love me.” Now that I am writing my own book, however, I think so often about the teen girls I hope to bless through my writing. And honestly, I've come to love my readers already because of the time I have invested in them through my book.

That made me realize there is a lot of purpose going into my Creator since He worked so hard to create me. And I want to live for His purpose and not my own.

1 Corinthians 2:7 (Msg)
“God's wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the interior of his purposes. You don't find it lying around on the surface. It's not the latest message, but more like the oldest—what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us, long before we ever arrived on the scene.”

Ephesians 1:11 (Msg)
“It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.”


Okay, okay. It’s not about me. (I got it, Stacy!) :)