Thursday, April 14, 2011

Ladder-leaning for Leaders


A Proverb
You may think you are on the right road and still end up dead.

A Thought
What if you get to the top of the ladder of your life and find out you had it leaning against the wrong building.

Have you ever had a conversation with someone about life’s purpose? Asked them “Why are you here? For what were you born? Just what is your purpose in life? Have you asked yourself?

Uncomfortable questions, it turns out.

Perhaps Socrates realized that the pressures of peers, of culture and learning provide false-fronts upon which you lean your ladder of life. He noted that “an unexamined life is a life not worth living.” Questions like that above help bring some clarity to thinking. Especially if one is challenged by the answers.

The toxic culture of the 21st century is numbing minds to ultimate truths that guide life. Life, for many just happens. For others, life finds meaning in self – pulling yourself up, reframing thinking, finding some sort of god in you. To some contestants on American Idol life is about singing and entertaining. Their purpose is wrapped up in their voice. Good to have focus. But is that purpose?

One contestant has a purpose greater than his voice and it even drives his choice of songs – he wants his ladder leaning up the “right wall.”

Earthquakes and tsunamis have a way of changing focus. If your world is about you and you only – what you do (how well you sing or entertain, engineer, build, project manage, whatever) - what happens if you “lose your voice – your world is washed away?” Have you lost your purpose? Is living over?

My purpose is to glorify God by expressing His love as a communicator, adviser and mentor, especially to those in the business community.
A Proverb

What’s your purpose?



©Copyright 2011 P. Grifffith Lindell

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Luke 6:43,44 - For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit.

And if I am a bad tree, what then is my purpose, "to bear bad fruit?"

P. Griffith "Griff" Lindell said...

Smiling...that's one way to look at it. Another is: thanks be to God that bad trees can become good trees through His grace. The "chief end of man is to glorify God..." and remember, good trees and bad trees will ..."at the name of Jesus every knee should bow...and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Question is: bow as a good tree or bad tree?

Dave C said...

Like every well cut gem stone My Purpose has many facets. But in the end all those facets add up to one ultimate Purpose, or comes down to one that is the purpose for all the others, which hopefully, as you stated, is to glorify God.

It's not that God needs our praise, it is that He takes pride in our acknowledgement of Who He is and what He has done for me and through me.

Like a parent takes pride in their child or a child takes pride in their parent, it is this oneness that we strive for and the only way we can accomplish that is through Him.

Hence, He is my Purpose.

P. Griffith "Griff" Lindell said...

Thanks, Dave. And it shows in your life, too.