Monday, February 17

Recently a long-time friend who I hadn’t seen in quite some time dropped in unexpectedly. We had met some twenty-five years earlier. He was a go-getter; nothing could stop him. He would start one business after another and immediately become successful. He would move from one marriage to another without ever looking back. He never asked for help. On the contrary, he was a problem-solver. People would line up to ask him for help. But I can see by the expression on his face that this wasn’t a social visit; something was wrong. Without delay he said, “it’s not business problems, it’s not marital problems, I just can’t find purpose to my life. I don’t want to live anymore. The only thing I look forward to in the day is falling asleep.”

My friend might be a more desperate case than most, but in reality what my friend expressed is no different than what people of all walks of life feel…a lack of purpose. Our tendency is to look for purpose in the things we do and in the people who surround us. The truth is that all of those things are good but they could never fulfill the purpose for which we were created. The word of God teaches us that we were created by God to have a relationship with God. In the book of Genesis we see that we were created in God’s image and His likeness. In God’s image means we were created in relationship to Him. In God’s likeness means we were created to have a relationship with Him. So, I looked straight at my friend and told him, “you may have done many good things in your life, you may have even done many good things for God in your life, but you’re missing the most important thing, your purpose, an intimate relationship with God.”

Bible reading
Genesis 1:26 NIV

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness….

Heavenly Father, at times I neglect what should be the most important and dearest thing in my life, a relationship with you, not just a casual one but an intimate one. Today I want to fulfill your purpose in my life.