Jesus Christ seems to me to have been one of the most focused, intentional people who truly lived out his life from his true self. The names others called him – Savior, Messiah, Lord, Teacher, Son of God – identified who he was and what his mission in life was.

In John 17, Jesus was on the way to the cross, in the Upper Room with the disciples, when he revealed his life’s purpose in a prayer, “I know You… and I have made You known to them.” The Message puts it this way, “Righteous Father, I have known You and these disciples know that You sent me on this mission. I have made Your very being known to them – who You are and what You do.”

Laurie Beth Jones in “Jesus, CEO” writes:

“Jesus knew his mission statement, and he did not deviate from it. He declared that his mission was, in essence, to teach people about a better way of life. He saw himself as a teacher and a healer.

An ancient adage says “If you want to defeat them, distract them.” In the wilderness Jesus was given several “business opportunities” that did not relate to his mission.

Each of these opportunities was related to talents that Jesus has, and used, in some form or another during his tenure. But he resisted them because they did not fit his mission statement.

Pause for a moment and consider the things Jesus did not do. Here is someone endowed with limitless power from on high. He could have done literally anything. Yet he did not build a temple or a synagogue. He did not write or distribute books. He did not even heal all the sick people in the world. He did not go down to the graveyards and raise everyone from the dead. He did not build shopping malls. His mission was very specific.

Jesus stuck to his mission.”

Do you know your personal mission statement? Until we know our mission we will never know if we have accomplished what God desires for us!

Henri Nouwen was a Catholic priest who wrote about spirituality. In one of his books he addressed the dilemma of loneliness. He said,

“It is far from easy to enter into the painful experience of loneliness. You like to stay away from it. Still it is an experience that enters into everyone’s life at some point. You might have felt it as a little child when your classmates laughed at you because you were cross-eyed or as a teenager when you were the last one chosen on the baseball team. You might have felt it when you were angry about non-sense rules which you could not change. You might have felt it as a young adult in a university where everyone talked about grades but where a good friend was hard to find. You might have felt it as a teacher when students did not respond to your carefully prepared lectures or as a preacher when people were dozing during your well-intentioned sermons. And you still might feel it day after day during staff meetings, conferences, counseling sessions, during long office hours or monotonous manual labor, or just when you are by yourself staring away from a book that cannot keep your attention. Practically every human being can recall similar or much more dramatic situations in which he or she has experienced that strange inner gnawing, that mental hunger, that unsettling unrest that makes us say, ‘I feel lonely…’

But what then can we do with our essential aloneness which so often breaks into our consciousness as the experience of a desperate sense of loneliness? Instead of running away from our loneliness and trying to forget or deny it, we have to protect it and turn it into a fruitful solitude. To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. This requires not only courage but also a strong faith. As hard as it is to believe that the dry desolate desert can yield endless varieties of flowers, it is equally hard to imagine that our loneliness is hiding unknown beauty. The movement from loneliness to solitude, however, is the beginning of any spiritual life because it is the movement form the restless senses to the restful spirit, from the outward reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search…”

May our restless senses be transformed by Christ, and may we find “peace that passes understanding.”

Recently, I made an appointment with a Spiritual Director. I had one up until our move to North Dakota, two and a half years ago. A Spiritual Director is a person who has been trained in helping people discern what God is up to in his/her life. At our first meeting, he asked me to tell him about what prompted me to seek spiritual direction at this time. I told him a few things that I thought may have prompted me. Then he asked me a question, “Where do you think God is in your ministry?” I began talking about where I thought we needed to move, how we had grown, and what some challenges still were. I talked on for about twenty-five minutes, until it was time for my appointment to be over. He then said, “I asked you a little while ago, ‘Where do you think God is in your ministry?’ and you told me a lot about what you are doing. Where is God in it?” I looked at him puzzled. He continued, “Often in ministry we are busy and we ask God to come along with us. But, what is God doing in you and in your people? What is God inviting you to do? Do you see the difference?”

It was like a light bulb being turned on in a dark room! Recognizing the risen Christ was what happened after Jesus walked the Emmaus road with two of the disciples and as he “took bread, blessed and broke it and gave it to them (Luke 24:30).”

Recognizing Christ is what it is about! Recognizing what Christ is doing and orienting our lives around it is so different than doing a lot of things in the name of Christ.

I find myself now more centered, more peaceful, more focused! It is one thing to follow the lead of the risen Christ and it is another to create a spiritual community on your own!

Do we recognize His presence?

Several weeks ago, I was listening to a person talking about a difficult situation in his family. He was at a loss for what to do. I listened… He laid it on the table, “What can I do?” He was beginning to realize that there was nothing he could do to change the person(s) in his family.

I was reminded recently of the following story:

A wise, old Middle Eastern mystic said this about himself. “I was a revolutionary when I was young, and all my prayer to God was: ‘Lord, give me the energy to change the world.’ As I approached middle age and realized that my life was half gone without my changing a single soul, I changed my prayer to: ‘Lord, give me the grace to change all those who come into contact with me. Just my family and friends and I shall be satisfied.’ Now that I am an old man and my days are numbered, I have begun to see how foolish I have been. My one prayer now is: ‘Lord, give me the grace to change myself.’ If I had prayed this right from the start, I would not have wasted my life.”

“Lord, give me the grace to change myself!” Or, as the Serenity Prayer says, “Grant me… the courage to change the things I can…”

The person I was listening to suddenly realized that he could not change his family situation, yet he could change how he dealt with it, how he acted… He bagin to realize that by changing how he acted that he could potentially bring about the greatest change in his family.

Where is your focus?

I am a big picture person. That is I see the forest, not the trees. I am best motivated by visualizing what I am working towards, how the details fit together. If I have a big picture, I begin to plan and work, and if I slow down and let God into it I pray. I am really trying to do more of that and to take better care of myself, yet some days my schedule is not my own, and I need to respond to an unscheduled person or situation and soon I am chasing my tail around in fatigue. Or, other days, I get so excited about something going on in a ministry or how God is working. If I do not stop, rest, and refuel then I am running on empty. Not very often, but sometimes after a rigorous pursuit, I am frustrated because I do not see any results of my efforts – I don’t see any changes, any signs of God’s presence and kingdom.

And if it goes on long enough, I feel like I’m in a valley of dry bones, where the life and Spirit are gone and I hear God asking, “Mortal, how can these bones live (Ezekiel 37:3)?”

How can our spirit be encouraged? How can we regain a sense of purpose? How can we get motivated again?

About three years ago, my family and I visited Cozumel. A friend told us of a dive shop that he knew. My wife, son and I decided to take scuba lessons. I remember getting suited up after some instruction and going under water for the first time. The instructor’s words before I went under were, “Remember to breathe.” It was easier said than done, however.

Ezekiel reminds us, “Remember to breathe.” God said to Ezekiel, “I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.” Wherever we are dead, dry, broken, hurt, remember to breathe and let God’s Spirit bring life.