By Don M. Aycock
4. To Live On Purpose Means To Take 100% Responsibility For Your Life.
The old comic strip, “Calvin and Hobbes” shows this so clearly. Calvin says, “Nothing I do is my fault. My family is dysfunctional and my parents won’t empower me! Consequently I’m not self-actualized. My behavior is addictive functioning in a disease process of toxic codependency! I need holistic healing and wellness before I’ll accept any responsibility for my actions!”
Hobbes replies: “One of us needs to stick his head in a bucket of ice water.”
Calvin says, “I love the culture of victimhood.”
Many people love this culture, but not those who live on purpose. They chart their own course in life and take responsibility for everything, both good and bad. Many a person has earned a Ph.D. at the university of hard knocks. But those people invariably see setbacks and problems as part of what makes them stronger. They do not waste time and energy whining about how people are unfair. They do not curse life for not placing them at the head of the line. They simply but firmly accept responsibility for their own responses to life.
We cannot choose everything that happens to us but we can choose how we react. When we live on purpose we find that setbacks are temporary and every problem holds potential. Life is what happens in us, not just around us.
In a previous era ocean-going ships flew three flags. The one on the main peak is the house flag that showed ownership. The flag on the forepeak was of the country of call. The one on the stern peak was the flag of the country of hail. That imagery is significant — ownership, origin, and destination. When we live on purpose we know each of these three. We know who and what we belong to. We remember where we came from. And primarily, we lean forward toward our destination. A man of intense purpose, the apostle Paul, put it this way: “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).
Let us live well. Let us live long. Let us live life as an adventure. But whatever else we do, let us live on purpose.
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Don M. Aycock is Pastor of Liberty Baptist Church in Palatka, FL.
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Notes
1. Robert D. Ballard, “A Long Last Look at the Titanic”, National Geographic, Dec. 1986, p. 702.
2. Boorstin, cited by Donald McCullough, “Are Your Touring or Traveling?,” Great Preaching 1996, pp. 5-6.
3. Haley, quoted by Walter Anderson, The Greatest Risk of All. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1988), p. 240.