For I know the
plans I have for you,” declares the LORD,
“plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)
Think about Stephen Hawking, brilliant
scientist and ALS victim. Think about the guy on the street who reeks of sweat
and worse, digging through trash for food. These tragic plights are used by
some as reasons to say that God does not exist, and that we don’t have a
purpose. To this, Ravi Zacharias says:
I
think it is here that we make our first very subtle mistake, both in our logic
and in our experience. It is shallow reasoning to deduce that because pain or
unfulfilled dreams have brought disappointment to experience, life itself must
be hollow and purposeless. In fact, this conclusion may miss the deeper problem
within our common struggle to find something in life of ultimate purpose. (Recapture the
Wonder, p. 3)
The mistake to which he refers is the
belief that those who are so afflicted are seen as being further from having a
purpose than those who are perceived as being great. When the stars speak out
on any issue, we need to listen because they’ve clearly got it together – or at
least much more together than we. Yesterday morning I read the testimony of a
woman who started her career as a doctor by performing abortions.
It
was clear to me that she gained a great sense of purpose in helping women who
were in tough situations. She thought she was doing the right thing. Over time,
however, she came to see that the women who sought abortions weren’t all noble.
In fact, she discovered that some were uncaring, some were hostile, that those
who had abortions were often more traumatized than those who had given birth.
After the birth of her own child, she came to understand that she had been
digging through “garbage” to find her scraps of “purpose.” Neither she, nor the
women she had tried to help, were made better by what she was doing.
I remember the outpouring of grief
over the deaths of Michael Jackson and Robin Williams. They were perceived as
being great, talented, successful people. The reality is that they were just as
desperate as the man looking for food in dumpsters. Poverty, pain, and darkness
do not take away purpose. Success, fame, and fortune do not provide purpose.
Some will say that such is further
proof that there is no purpose. I would like to ask such people why they are so
insistent that there is no purpose. Do they not see convincing others of the
purposelessness of life as their purpose, at least for the moment? It is a
frequent claim among Liberals that our purpose is to love, and to accept all
people as they are. Like the one who claims that there is no purpose, they are
determined to change those who don’t love according to their definition or who
don’t “accept all people as they are.”
I agree with what the Liberals say,
and with what they do in this sense: I agree that our purpose is to love people.
I also agree that our purpose is to speak and stand for the truth. Where I
disagree is with their definition of love and truth, and therefore with all
that is built upon those definitions. These are the two strands of our
purpose DNA. Replication errors produce mutations; mutations (contrary to
depictions in popular culture) are almost always harmful and sometimes deadly.
If at least part of our purpose is to
love others and to speak the truth, even desperate circumstances do not stand
in the way of a purpose having purpose. Tragic circumstances do not disprove
purpose. Those circumstances sometimes make the purpose clearer and simpler.
There’s less chance for mutations in our purpose DNA.
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