“Live Life on Purpose”. In between raising children, PTA meetings, nurturing friendships, running businesses or trying to keep our jobs, little league games, soccer games, maintaining marriages, giving ourselves to philanthropic involvements, taking care of elderly parents—in between all of that and more—sure. Let’s live life on purpose. What a joke! Or is it?
We are busier than Webster defines the word ‘busy’ itself. And, although many things happen in our lives that we have no control over, we can prepare, we can plan, we can take preventive measures, and we can choose to respond rather than to react.
Some decisions can be made before we are forced to make them. We can decide that rather than multi-task and let life pass us by, we will be fully engaged in each moment, each event, each important episode of our lives.
Before having children, we can agree on the principles and beliefs with which we will raise them. Before elderly parents become unable to care for themselves we can have family meetings to determine their care. Before we are overwhelmed with insurmountable bills and financial obligations we can decide not to live beyond our means, establish and live according to a budget, and save consistently and spend responsibly.
Before we get married we can receive sound pre-marital counseling from experienced professionals, and married non-professionals who will be honest with us about what nurturing a healthy marriage requires. Before volunteering for noble causes we can exercise time management by assessing our time and assessing the current season of our lives.
Before we end up alone and unhappy we can foster healthy relationships. And when none of the above strategies have been applied, we can choose to stop, think, listen, discuss, and consider— before making decisions that can alter the course of the lives in a negative way.
A wise scholar once said, “Look carefully then how you walk. Live purposefully and worthily and accurately, not as the unwise and witless, but as wise people. Making the very most of the time.” Ephesians 5:15
Life is too short to allow it to simply happen to us without doing what we can to enjoy it to the fullest. Tomorrow is not promised so it would serve us well to live each day intentionally.
As we do so, then when the unexpected happens, when the unthinkable occurs, when the unfathomable dares to visit our journey in life, we do not have to be overcome and incapacitated. Instead, we can take the hit, maybe even get knocked down, but then we can get up, reach out to our support system of family and friends that we have maintained, and go on with our lives, as we choose to be those who live life on purpose.