Our church has embarked on a six week study by Pastor Rick Warren entitled What on Earth am I Here For?, based on Pastor Warren's book, The Purpose Driven Life. The first line in this book of 40 personal devotions sets the tone: It's not about you.
At first take, this sounds like a negative statement. I mean, I am participating in this study to find out what my purpose is, and right out of the gate the first thing I read is It's not about you. Really? We're talking about my life here. My reason for living. My purpose. How could it not be about me?
If that's true . . .
In exploring the possibility that indeed my purpose may not be centered around me, I found a certain freedom and peace. I realized that if life isn't about me, then all that stuff I see as unfair isn't about me. The junk that the world throws at me isn't about me. The inequity, the decks stacked against me, the losses, the pain, the turmoil, the grief and all that other negative stuff--none of it is about me. Wow, what a relief!
I also had to explore the other side of that coin. Whatever success I've had, any gains I have made, all of my possessions, every one of my hopes and dreams--realized and yet to come--they're not about me either. All that I have, or want, or have lost. Every tear I have shed, every laugh I have shared, every smile and grimace, every pleasure and pain . . . none were about me.
If not me, then who?
It's about God, of course. Pastor Warren references Colossians 1:16 from the Biblical paraphrase The Message, which reads in part, "everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him." God created everything, and everything is about God. Everything. Including me and you.
Our lives are about God. Our successes and failures, our strengths and weaknesses, our joys and our sorrows are not about you and me. Everything that we are and do and experience is about God. We are part of His creation, and all of His creation finds its purpose in Him. It's not about me. It's not about you. It's about God.
So what?
So it doesn't matter what I do, because it's not about me, right? Ummm . . . no. Because my life purpose is found in God, it matters infinitely more what I do. If life was about me, I'm just one of about seven billion other people in this world today. I'm no big deal. But there is only one True God. And if my life is about Him--that changes everything.
Whether I do my best at whatever I do is not about me; it's about God. My attitude when life is hard is not about me; it's about God. Just as equally, my attitude when things go my way is not about me; that's about God, too.
All things find their purpose in God. If that doesn't make you pause, I don't know what will.
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