I live in order to be able to:

• Find wisdom and share it.
• Experience joy and spread it.
• Dispense kindness wherever I go.
• Encourage people.
• Be a living example of hope.
• Speak the truth in love.
• Resist and overcome temptation.
• Proclaim liberty to the captives.
• Make the world a better place.
• Warn of the deception of self-focused desire.
• Open my heart to people and to God.
• Align my thoughts, feelings, desires, beliefs, and behaviors with God.
• Call people to ekklesia (Christ’s Spirit-led town hall meeting).
• Communicate the reality of Jesus in creative ways.
• Focus on the risen Jesus and do what He says.
• Praise, worship, and adore Jesus throughout the day.
• Be a Jesus-writer; to focus my attention on the risen Jesus and write what He puts on my heart.

(I don’t always succeed at these things, but they are written on my heart and are always my goal.)

Neglecting to find a healthy focus for your life will blur your days with boredom and bind you with blinding distractions. There must be a purpose for your pulse — a reason for your respiration. Finish this sentence: I live in order to be able to . . .

Aimless activity and a mind mired in meaninglessness alienate people from a sense of purpose. Thoughts, desires, and actions that have no purpose produce an aimless life. Finding something meaningful to live for will make your life something amazing!

People need a purpose, and we need kindness. Making it your purpose to spread kindness everywhere you go is a pathway to a meaningful life. A little kindness goes a long way and touches people’s hearts is ways we can’t imagine.

God is a personal being. Throughout the Bible He interacts with and communicates with people. For a meaningful life open your heart to Him.

Here’s an amazing paradox: The more I surrender myself to the living Jesus, the more I find myself. The key to overcoming guilt isn’t to call wrong right. It’s to stop doing wrong.

As humans we all crave a focus other than self. That’s why we put so much time, money, and energy into sports and entertainment. God so loved the world, and we are made in His image. We are the happiest when we focus away from self and put our focus on the risen Jesus.

One of the reasons I so treasure ekklesia (Christ’s Spirit-led town hall meeting) is because people are free to open up and share from their heart. Then we begin to see that we are all facing basically the same struggles and we are encouraged and empowered by each other. As we see other people surrender to Christ right in front of our eyes, we begin to trust that we, too, can do the same. Then we begin to grow from glory to glory.