Holy Fool

A good brother and I were emailing, this was my part:

My wife Alicia and I have been talking about this concept: purpose...  What does it mean, and does it exist in the personal or individual sense?

Often Jeremiah 29:11 get’s brought up. “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.“

What many miss, when they quote that verse in isolation is that it isn’t addressed to an individual.  Earlier in verse 4 the party addressed is identified as, “all the captives he has exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem.“  The intended audience is God’s people, his remnant, his elect, not an air tight plan for an individual.

His plan was to eventually return Israel home, to their land, but he had sent them there for a reason.  They had been exiled to bring to that empire his fragrance, his shalom, through his people and do a work within the hearts of the empire towards good.

I guess what I am saying is, He is with you(and us) in the going, in the being about our business in the world as his people.  I struggle with wanting a task, a mission, an A to B diagram.  And like you, I rarely get that.  Often I come to the fork in the road, and in asking God which way to go he simply says “Yes”.  I am learning to let go of wanting to have a purpose, so that I can begin to live with purpose in all I do, wherever that is, however it takes hold.

C.S. Lewis. From, The Great Divorce:

'Whisht, now!" said my Teacher suddenly. We were standing close to some bushes and beyond them I saw one of the Solid People and a Ghost who had apparently just that moment met.  The outlines of the Ghost looked vaguely familiar, but I soon realized that what I had seen on Earth was not the man himself but photographs of him in the papers. He had been a famous artist:

'God' said the Ghost, glancing round the landscape.

'God what?' asked the Spirit.

'What do you mean, "God what"?' asked the Ghost.

'In our grammar God is a noun.'

'Oh–I see, I only meant "By Gum" or something of the sort. I meant... well, all this. It's... it's... I should like to paint this.' 

'I shouldn't bother about that just at present if I were you.'

'Look here; isn't one going to be allowed to go on painting?'

'Looking comes first.'

'But I've had my look. I've seen just what I want to do. God!–I wish I'd thought of bringing my things with me!'

The Spirit shook his head, scattering light from his hair as he did so. 'That sort of thing's no good here,' he said.

'What do you mean?' said the Ghost.

'When you painted on earth–at least in your earlier days–it was because you caught glimpses of Heaven in the earthly landscape. The success of your painting was that it enabled others to see the glimpses too. But here you are having the thing itself. It is from here that the message came. There is no good telling us about this country, for we see it already. In fact we see it better than you do.'

'Then there's never going to be any point in painting here?'

'I don't say that. When you've grown into a Person (it's all right, we all had to do it) there'll be some things which you'll see better than anyone else. One of the things you'll want to do will be to tell us about them. But not yet. At present your business is to see. Come and see. He is endless. Come and feed.'

There was a little pause. 'That will be delightful,' said the Ghost presently in a rather dull voice.

'Come, then.' said the Spirit, offering it his arm.

'How soon do you think I could begin painting?' it asked.

'The Spirit broke into laughter. 'Don't you see you'll never paint at all if that's what you're thinking about?' he said.

'What do you mean?' asked the Ghost.

'Why, if you are interested in the country only for the sake of painting it, you'll never learn to see the country.'

'But that's just how a real artist is interested in the country.'

'No. You're forgetting,' said the Spirit. 'That was not how you began. Light itself was your first love: you loved paint only as a means of telling about light.'

'Oh, that's ages ago,' said the Ghost. 'One grows out of that. Of course, you haven't seen my later works. One becomes more and more interested in paint for its own sake.'

'One does, indeed. I also have had to recover from that. It was all a snare. Ink and catgut and paint were necessary down there, but they are also dangerous stimulants. Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him. For it doesn't stop at being interested in paint, you know. They sink lower–become interested in their own personalities and then in nothing but their own reputations.' 

Preachers.  Are you revealing the Kingdom, or fulfilling a selfish desire to be known as a great preacher?

Teachers.  Do you seek to find and enable the Spirit in each of your students, or do you want to be seen as smart?

Leaders.  Do you empower those you influence towards excellence, or are you preoccupied with your legacy?

Students.  Do you wish to help your classmates learn what you see, or is being top of the class the goal?

Parents.  Do you love your children with the love God provides and let them be themselves, or do you control them to fulfill your own inadequacies and missed dreams?

How does this speak to you today?