People of Purpose

Psychologist William Moulton Marston surveyed 3,000 people and asked them, “What do you have to live for?”

He was shocked to find that of the people who responded, 94 percent were simply enduring the present while they were waiting for the future. They described this as waiting for something to happen. They were waiting for children to grow up and leave home, waiting for next year, waiting for another time to take a dreamed-about trip. They were waiting for tomorrow.

We can spend our whole lives waiting for something to happen, and meanwhile, our lives are passing by. We have no purpose. We have no direction. We’re throwing them away.

As someone has said, “Some men die by shrapnel, and some go down in flames, but most men perish inch by inch, playing at little games.”

Purpose is vital. It’s an anchor in storm. It’s a base in battle.

We read in the New Testament that when Barnabas visited the believers in Antioch, he “encouraged them all that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord” (Acts 11:23).

Ephesians 2 describes us before our commitment to Christ: “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience” (verses 1–2).

That’s how we lived. But then we found out there was a God. We discovered His Word. We found there were absolutes to live by in life—right and wrong, true and false, black and white. We became men and women of purpose.

Do other people know what you stand for? If you don’t stand for something, you are liable to fall for anything.