Hope for Your Heart: Finding Strength in Life's Storms (22 page)

Not long ago I led a conference for several hundred single men and women. At one point I distributed index cards and asked them to write down their most pressing problem, something they’ve struggled to overcome but continues to challenge them.

The most common response was not surprising for a large group of singles—loneliness. The second response
was
surprising to me and to many of the event sponsors—feeling useless.

Many of those young, eager, bright, spiritually minded men and women felt a lack of purpose and direction. They had no strong sense of calling, no vision of their destiny, no anticipation of what lay ahead. They had no wind in their sails.

Instead they felt adrift on the stagnant sea of life, at the mercy of the meaningless currents of world opinion and world values that swirled around them. Honestly, I was quite shocked and saddened by the large percentage of these young people who were clueless as to their precise mission on earth.

But maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. Countless people today feel aimless, unfulfilled, and purposeless. Consequently their hope for abundant life in this present life has run amuck. They may be involved in lots of worthwhile activities, even serving the Lord diligently, but they sense a void, as though they should be investing their lives in something bigger, more important.

Years ago when I was totally absorbed in serving teenagers as a youth pastor, a respected church leader stopped by my office to chat. I treasured such visits and was always eager to soak up whatever wisdom he had to share. After a while he asked, “So, June, what’s your purpose in life?”

Caught off guard by the question, I thought for a moment, then said, “Well, I want to do whatever God wants me to do.”

“That’s great,” he persisted, “but what’s your
purpose
?”

I’m sure I looked a bit befuddled, because I was. I didn’t understand exactly what he was asking of me, so he graciously came at it from a different angle.

“What brings you the most joy?” he asked. “When you’re doing what God wants you to do, what thrills and delights you more than anything else? That’s where you’ll find your purpose.”

We sat in silence for several minutes as I seriously pondered the question. Finally I replied, “I feel most alive, most used by God, when I’m teaching and I see light bulbs go on in people’s heads. It’s when I’m communicating spiritual truths, and they
get it
. I could be talking to one person or a thousand . . . it doesn’t matter. I feel most energized and excited . . . like the Holy Spirit is successfully working through me . . . when I tell people about God and His Word and I know it’s sinking in down deep where it can change lives.”

That brief conversation had a huge impact on my life and the hope I have in what God is doing in me, to me, and through me. During the subsequent years I have more clearly defined what I consider to be God’s calling on my life.

My
inner
purpose is to gain as much wisdom as I possibly can from spending time with God and studying His Word and rubbing shoulders with people who possess godly wisdom. My
outer
purpose is to share the transforming truths of Jesus Christ through both the teaching and the application of God’s Word. And I want to do that with as many people as I possibly can.

I’ve come back to these statements over and over, and they have helped keep me on track. Since I am notorious for taking on more than I can reasonably accomplish and for saying
yes
to more things than I should, sometimes to the chagrin of all who work with me, keeping these purpose statements in sight helps me recalibrate my priorities.

Doing so has pressed me into some tough decisions as I’ve felt the need to resign from several boards and pass up some marvelous opportunities. Many
good
things can lure us away from the
best
thing God has for us . . . the purpose God wants to accomplish through us and the hope He wants to instill in us along the way.

The British pastor, evangelist, and writer F. B. Meyer wisely pointed out:

Nothing is more disastrous than aimless drift, for God endows each person for a distinct purpose. Sometimes, there may come a lucid moment when there flashes before us a glimpse of the lifework for which we were sent forth. Still other times, we may look ahead as into a veil of mist, and we walk forward by faith, believing that the fog will lift.

Believe it: God will unfold our life purpose, if not in a flash then step by gradual step. Let us go steadily forward, counting on our Almighty Guide to supply the needed grace, wisdom, and strength. He will not desert the work of His own hands! What plan God has in mind for you, He will provide all to see it through to completion.
¹

What brings
you
the greatest joy in life? What makes you feel more alive and energized than anything else? What puts wind in your sails, bolsters your confidence, and enhances your hopefulness? The Lord does indeed have plans for you, to give you a future and a hope.

It is your job—through prayer, study of the Scriptures, godly counsel, meditation and introspection, and a bit of trial and error—to discern what exactly God is calling you to do. I like the way Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell puts it: “There are two great moments in a person’s life: the moment you are born and the moment you realize
why
you were born.”
²

Discovering your purpose is not about the
what
questions but the
why
questions. Everyone can say what they’re doing (working at a software company, teaching Sunday school, playing on the softball team, and so on), but when pressed, most people can’t tell you precisely
why
they’re doing those things.

Both were
powerful
men,
prominent
leaders,
progressive
change-makers . . . they both changed the history of the world
.
They were both exceptional orators . . . changing minds, hearts, and lives. They were both
heralded as heroes . . .
literally impacting millions of people. Whatever they set about to do sent ripple effects around the world.

They both possessed
purpose-driven lives . . .
but each took a distinctly different course. The apostle Paul was driven by a
divine
purpose . . . Adolf Hitler by a
diabolical
purpose.The apostle Paul found
all
meaning in life tied to one person, his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. All his striving, struggling, serving was for the glory of another. Self was sacrificed . . . for the cause of Christ.

Hitler, too, found all meaning in life tied to and wrapped up in one person—
himself.
“I shall become the greatest man in history.” So said the infamous Führer. “I have to gain immortality even if the whole German nation perishes in the process.”
³

Adolf Hitler sought to fulfill his purpose in life first by serving his country as a corporal in World War I. After the war, his strong sense of patriotism led him in the direction of politics, and he penned
Mein Kampf
, which translated means “My Struggle,” a two-volume set dictating his ideology.

Surrounding himself with a handful of like-minded men, he became leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (the Nazi Party) and was named Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and Führer in 1934. Emerging as a dominant political force, his influence soon became global, garnering him the title “Man of the Year” by
Time
magazine in 1938.

But Hitler’s greatest source of significance did not come from titles or top billing on the world stage. His sense of self-worth was rooted in what he believed was a divine mandate, a mission given to him by God Himself.

Hitler wrote, “My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to the fight against them.”
⁴

Hitler sought death for the Jews, but the apostle Paul sought to bring them life,
eternal life
. His was a labor of love, and he anguished over their repeated rejection of the gospel message.

At one point it appeared as if both men were headed for the same destiny . . . arm in arm, on the same course of corruption. Hitler wanted to kill the Jews, and Paul, when he was previously known as Saul, wanted to kill the Jews who had become Christians . . . to kill the early church . . . to squelch its impact, dragging off its people to prison. All the while, both men truly believed they were serving God.

As a young man, Paul thought he was fulfilling his purpose in life when he “began to destroy the church” (Acts 8:3). A zealous Pharisee in the early days of the church, he went house to house dragging off men and women who were followers of Jesus Christ and putting them in prison. He stood by and watched while Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was stoned for his faith, consenting to his death.

But his campaign against Christians ended when he had a conversation with the risen Christ and his real purpose in life began. “Still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples” (Acts 9:1), Paul was traveling to Damascus and was on the outskirts of the city when “a light from heaven flashed around him” (Acts 9:3).

Jesus appeared to Paul and revealed that in persecuting the church, Paul was in reality persecuting Jesus. Later, after Paul experienced the transforming work of Christ in his life, Jesus said of him, “This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel” (Acts 9:15).

The apostle Paul was flogged for his faith, beaten for his beliefs, imprisoned for his purpose, put in chains for his choice. Clearly he had chosen to follow Christ no matter what.

Hitler’s colossal rise to power in the 1930s came crashing down in 1945. But before all was said and done, the damage incurred from a relatively brief stint of power was devastating. Just one life, far outside of God’s purposes, had tremendous impact . . . tragicimpact.

The notorious Nazi regime not only provoked World War II, but Hitler ordered the killing of approximately six million Jews as well as five million others he deemed racially inferior or politically dangerous. The savagery ended with Hitler’s suicide as the Allied Forces poured into Nazi-occupied territories.

Life . . . and death . . . came dishonorably to Hitler, who was preoccupied with his own glory and couldn’t bear to see it wane.

When Paul got off the path of persecution and onto the road to righteousness, only then did he
truly
begin to serve God. He became the leading theologian of the apostolic age and was labeled “Apostle to the Gentiles.”

His life was characterized by fruitful labor for the Lord—evangelizing, teaching, discipling, praying, planting churches, and sending weighty doctrinal letters to God’s people, who at times he felt the need to rebuke. But Paul always reinforced his deep love and concern.

Hitler was preoccupied with power,
and not just political power
. While he publicly proclaimed himself a Catholic, it is widely documented that Hitler owned a number of books on the occult and was discipled by Dietrich Eckhart, leader of the Thule Society, also known as the German Brotherhood of Death Society.

On his deathbed Eckhart had the following to say about Hitler: “Follow Hitler! He will dance, but it is I who have called the tune! I have initiated him into the ‘Secret Doctrine,’ opened his centers in vision, and given him the means to communicate with the Powers.”
⁵

And concerning the astronomical rise in SS membership from three hundred in 1929 to fifty-two thousand in 1933, Hitler attests, “The hierarchical organization and the initiation through symbolic rites, that is to say without bothering the brains but by working on the imagination through magic and the symbols of a cult—all this is the dangerous element and the element I have taken over.”
⁶

Hitler was eager to rise to the call of an impoverished German nation weary of sluggish democratic reforms and wanting to revive its sense of national pride. He embraced references like “Messiah” and “Savior,” although it was political leadership that put Germany back on the map.

Hitler revived a dismal economy, reclaimed the Rhineland, lowered the crime rate, built freeways, and eliminated unemployment. And for all these “miraculous” accomplishments,
he was adored
, ushering in the diabolical and distinctive salute of Nazi worship: “Heil, Hitler!”

Enmeshed in lofty titles, sacrilegious symbols, and adulation, Hitler announced it was time to begin a new religion in order to instigate a system of beliefs that would strengthen the German people,
not
weaken them as Christianity had
.

Talk of mercy and forgiveness sapped Germany of its strength, according to Hitler, and in his religion there would be no fear of a bad conscience or death. People “would be able to trust their instincts, would no longer be citizens of two worlds, but would be rooted in the single eternal life of this world.”
⁷
Hitler felt himself on a divine mission to save Germany and in chilling blasphemy proclaimed: “What Christ began . . . I will complete.”
⁸

And for Hitler, the end
always
justified the means. “The victor will never be asked afterward whether he told the truth or not. In starting and making a war it is not might that matters, but victory.”
⁹

Yet, long before, the apostle Paul had spoken these words: “They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie” (2 Thess. 2:10–11).

Two purpose-driven lives with incredible comparisons and contrasts! Paul went on a missionary journey during which he invited people to surrender their lives to Christ. Hitler occupied foreign territories where he forced people to surrender their lives to him. How opposite their aims!

Paul strived to bring life to the Jews. Hitler strived to bring death to the Jews. Paul spread love. Hitler spread hate. Paul recognized his purpose as glorifying God. Hitler saw his purpose as glorifying self. Paul died honorably as a martyr for the Lord. Hitler died dishonorably by the act of cowardly suicide.

The comparison between these two towering historical figures shows one thing for sure: Those who see themselves as the center of their life purpose are headed in a disastrous direction. But those who place God at the center of their purpose will be used by Him in great ways and will be led by Him on a grand adventure.