Understanding what’s important and what isn’t 

We want to make a difference.

Deeper than our need for food or air or water is our need for meaning, our need to know that our lives count for something.

Johnny

Our souls need to be fed, just as our bodies do.  Bodies are fed by protein and carbohydrates.  Souls are fed by words.

Matthew 4: 4

Sometimes we think that our current situation is a barrier to meaning but in fact it’s where it starts.

If your mission and meaning can’t start where you are then it can’t start at all.

Jesus’ idea was that when someone began to follow Him, that person would become good news to everyone in the area, in the workplace, in school or college.

Mark 5: 18-20

“You are the salt of the earth”  Matthew 5: 13

Salt’s calling is to lose itself in something bigger to enhance its flavour.

When God gave Moses his mission He asked him “What’s that in your land?”   Exodus 4: 2

It was his staff. His livelihood. His security and finances.  God asked him to lay it down and let God use it.

What’s in your hand?  What has God given you?  Your gifts, temperament, experience, relationships, interests.  All these determine your mission.

God never wastes a hurt.  2 Corinthians 12: 10.  Part of what makes a human life most powerful is the struggle.

What troubles you most?

For Moses it was the oppression of his people.
For William Wilberforce it was slavery.
For Martin Luther King it was the oppression of African Americans.
For Mill and Fuller it was seeing people without a home.

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

Jesus came along and called His disciples.

Mark 1: 16-18  Mark 2: 14  They were the dregs of society.  He said to them: “I believe in you.  What I know I’ll teach you, and what I do you can do and you’ll change the world.”  No wonder they followed Him.

And that’s what He’s calling you and I to do. He believes in you.