Celebrate Life with Purpose

Ah! The infamous To Do List!

I love writing to do lists! I try to keep a running list of things I need to accomplish. Writing them down helps me remember. Whether or not the list helps me actually perform the tasks or finish them is a whole nother story!

As old retired people, we can get sort of lazy if we don’t have an agenda. Having a few goals for every day is a healthy mindset.

My mom, age 92, has found her stride in the assisted living home and fills some of each day with activities other than napping or sitting and watching TV. She has discovered the joy of putting together puzzles. Though that costs an arm and a leg, it gives her great pleasure to complete a puzzle and have everyone that visits come in to see her finished project. I keep pushing her to make an afghan for each of her million great grandchildren, and I tell her she can’t kick until she’s finished with them all!

Ronald and I both have exercise on our daily agenda. Beyond that, we each try to have a chore or two a day we work on. Sometimes, I don’t have the energy for chores, or my chores require too much time to finish, or something else comes up and the project gets moved to another day. When I do complete something however, I rejoice, mark off the task with a flourish, and do a happy dance of joy!

But all those things aren’t really my purpose in life. What is? Even my trying to figure out what I will be when I grow up is not finding my true purpose. I don’t believe a career is purpose. Purpose to me indicates a higher calling.

Some people write a spiritual life mission statement. Others have a verse or passage of Scripture that describes their God Purpose.

One of the most poetic life mission statements I know is from Micah 6:8. “He has shown you, Oh man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”  NKJV

Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-39, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Those two things seem to be a sum total of a life full of God’s purpose. I’m pretty sure if we followed those guidelines, we would be able to celebrate daily. May we live so.

Blessings

KB