Purpose

Recently I read a book entitled, The Winners Manual, by the head football coach of THE Ohio State Buckeyes Jim Tressel. He is a coach who has won a lot of football games, yet he does not define success as winning games. He argues that success arrives when we know we have done all we can to fulfill our purpose. He goes on to talk about the relationship between our purpose and our goals. According to coach Tressel our purpose is who we are, our inner most being. It is not our jobs, our status, or our education, or even our possessions; rather our purpose is who we are at our deepest level. Goals are related to purpose in that our goals are the things we do to fullfil our purpose. Therefore purpose is being and goals are doing.

I believe that our purpose as Christians is given to us by Christ. In Luke 10:25-28, Jesus is confronted by a lawyer who asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus famously responds that he must love God with all his mind, with all his heart, and with all his soul, and his neighbor as himself. Of course, when Jesus speaks to someone in scripture he is speaking to us as well. Our purpose in life is to love God with heart, mind, and soul, and to love our neighbors as we love our selves. Our purpose is to love. Over the next few days I will write a little bit about different attitudes an areas of spiritual practice that we can set goals in order to love God, love ourselves, and our neighbors.

Question for today:
How would you define the word success?

This meditation is also posted on the website of the Church of the Resurrection in Omaha, NE.