What better example than Jesus’ life to explain about having a life’s purpose? No other example I can think of, can you?
From the moment he was born–wait, hold upBEFORE he was born, His purpose was already established. And so was yours.
Jesus was born to the exact parents He needed to be born to, in order for him to fulfill his life’s purpose, and so were you.
Mary was a virgin. Just so happened, she was about to be married. Coincidence? I think not.
Nowadays, things are a lot different than they were back then. And some people, or should I say, society as a whole, no longer frowns on woman who have children out of wedlock. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that women didn’t get pregnant before they were married back-in-the-day, but most of the time it resulted in a gunshot wedding.
Mary didn’t have to have one of those because she was already planning her wedding when she became pregnant. There are no such things as coincidences.
Mary was also a direct descendent of Abraham. Coincidence? I think not.
Now, when Joseph found out that Mary was pregnant, like any other man, he got mad and started not to marry her. I can see it now. Picture this: Mary calls Joseph (or wait, no phones yet), Mary goes to see Joseph and tells him she has something really important she has to tell him. She’s a little nervous because she can’t imagine what he is going to say. She
finally gets up the nerve and says, “Uhm, Joe, uhm, (fake smile) guess what? I’m pregnant.” (Can you imagine that?)
Not too many people, or at least not the brothers I know, would have ever believed that story. OK, I’m laughing right now because I just got a visual of my husband. If I had said something like that to him, he would have first, gave me that look. Then he would have said, ‘wait, how is that possible? I’ve never even touched you.’ Then, if I would have
started explaining that I was pregnant by God
But an angel spoke to Joseph and explained the situation, so Joseph was cool with it real fast and never questioned it again. Joseph was the right earthly father for Jesus.
When Jesus was 12 years old, around the age when most of us first start to experience our first taste of independencehe found himself mentorspeople who could teach him what he needed to know about the word of God.
This is exactly what we need to do to develop our craft, our skill, and our purpose. Find yourself a mentor. Someone who is doing exactly what it is that you want to do and ask them questions; offer to help out so that you may learn. You aren’t born knowing everything, but there are others out there that know what you need to know. Go where they are. Ask them questions. Find out what they know. Research–until the student
becomes the teacher, the same way Jesus did.
There really isn’t
A Seventeenth Century Samurai maxim states:
“A man who has attained mastery of an art reveals it in his every action”
This saying is one of my personal favorites. There is so much depth to its meaning. Allow me to discuss it a little and explain how it will be able to benefit you.
First, a question: What is the single greatest thing that you can do with mastery and excellence? Don’t say: “nothing.” Everybody is good at something. Just think for a moment.
There will be one thing that you can do perfectly time and time again. It is the thing that is so ridiculously easy for you to do that you can do it with your eyes closed, almost standing on your head - so to speak. It may be a simple thing or it may be something quite complex, but whatever it is you make it look easy.
In fact, you are so good at it you make other people think that they can do it easily too - until they try. It might be a sport like tennis or something as mundane as making scones or cupcakes.
It’s amazing how a champion tennis player can make the game look so simple. Or how a master cook can seemingly slap ingredients together and come up with an absolute masterpiece of culinary delight.
So what is it? What are you a master at? Keep that thing in mind while I diverge back to the samurai for a moment - a little bit of history.
The samurai lived by the sword and died by it. They were so adept at reading body movement that they were able to draw their swords and use them with deadly effect against opponents in the mere blink of an eye. Their observations and reflexes were finely honed, principally because their very existence depended on it. But did you know that they were able to transcend their ability with the sword into other arts? Many of them were also master poets. Others were highly skilled calligraphers. Others became very skilled in the art of the tea ceremony. Some became master carpenters.
Have you noticed how these “ancillary” skills are so diametrically opposed to their military expertise with the sword? So how and why did they engage in these things? Could it be that they were “balancing” their lives? Were they following the concept of “yin and yang?”
If you are not sure what yin and yang is I will outline it briefly for you. Basically, it a Japanese recognition of the duality of all things in nature. For instance, night and day, female and male, black and white and so on. Further, there is some night within day and some day within night and so on.
Time for another question. Are you so set in your ways that you refuse to develop other skills? Can you not broaden your horizons? Might you be able to “balance” your life a little more?
Think back to that one thing that you are able to do very well. Why