The most dangerous thing on planet earth is a toddler without a purpose. It’s like a tornado ripping through a town. We never know which way it will turn and it leaves destruction in its path.
There are people who are great with preschool to elementary age children. And then there are those that connect better with junior high and high school age. I am definitely the latter. What I learned with both age groups is that you definitely need to have a purpose with the time you are with them. If not, chaos will ensue and you will quickly find yourself in harms way.
Purposeful living squelches out harmful behavior. Living with purpose:
- Keeps you focused on your end goal.
- Enhances healthy discipline in your life.
- Keeps away wasteful moments.
- Helps you make wise choices.
- Brings greater joy.
- Gives you a reason to live intentionally.
These are all great reasons and there are many more. However, I believe the greatest reason is …
The more we live out our purpose, the more silent the voice of sin and temptation becomes.
When my son was in his toddler years, someone much older and wiser looked deep into my eyes and stated with ultimate seriousness: “If you want to keep him out of trouble, keep him busy.” It was the best advice I had ever received and it rang true for every season of both of my children’s lives.
However, it’s not just busy for the sake of being busy. It’s not just running ragged with countless activities. It’s living purposeful, intentional and for a reason bigger than ourselves.
Yet, “how do we live purposefully,” and “what are the steps we can take to ensure we are being effective and productive?”
I’m glad you asked 🙂.
2 Peter 1:5-12 gives us the missing ingredients.
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
2 Peter 1:5-11
To live purposefully, we must build the following into our lives:
By living in light of these characteristics, we will live out God’s purposes for our lives, we will not get tripped up by sin and we will hear from our Savior, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” It’s daily focusing on growing in these areas through time in the Word, prayer and actively choosing these characteristics that will help us to be effective and productive in our lives.
Will we stumble? Yes. Will we fall? Most definitely. Yet, purposeful living comes with living in the grace and mercy of our Savior and choosing each day to live according to these principles. In this we will live our greatest life.
Remembering the exhortation of Theodore Roosevelt, “It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
May we continue to live…
Rooted in Him,
