Ninja Turtles and Living on Purpose
When our boys were preschool-aged, they attended a mother’s day out program at our church. In the springtime, the program always hosted a graduation ceremony for the “big kids” as they prepared to go off to kindergarten.
The kiddos would don caps and gowns and walk (or dance or skip) the stage to receive their diplomas. As each one would make his or her way across the stage, the director would announce what each child aspired to be as an adult.
The year leading up to our older son’s “graduation,” we had spent Tuesday evenings at home watching a television series called “911.” Week after week, we had watched brave fire and rescue teams courageously save the day. So when graduation rolled around, we weren’t surprised at all that our boy wanted to grow up to be a firefighter.
Three years later, little brother’s turn was up. As he confidently walked toward the director to receive his diploma, she announced that this little man wanted to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Well. That was a surprise – and worth a good laugh all those years ago.
Interestingly, both boys followed in their father’s footsteps to the accounting world, avoiding the occupational hazards of more adventurous career paths. The wannabe firefighter and the Ninja Turtle traded hopes and dreams of saving lives and taking down bad guys for balancing budgets and creating spreadsheets.
In between their childhood aspirations and their current careers, thoughts were entertained of law, engineering, and architecture. But accounting it was, and accounting it is even today.
As adults, our ambitions, goals, and priorities may shift as we encounter various life changes and situations. The dreams of our youth often morph into far different objectives when reality butts in. And even as we settle into career and family patterns, we may occasionally have second thoughts or regrets. We may question if what we’re living out is really what we were made for. Are we living on purpose?
I think that’s why I’m such a big fan of the apostle Paul. After his salvation experience with Jesus on the road to Damascus, Paul was laser focused on his purpose and mission, and he never looked back.
On one particular journey, Paul was on his way to Jerusalem. Hoping to arrive before Pentecost, he determined to bypass the province of Asia but wanted to still be able to meet up with the elders of the Ephesian church. So the elders made their way to a town called Miletus to spend time with Paul.
Paul had drawn those men together for a final good-bye. Every leg of his missionary journeys was growing more and more dangerous. He had made enemies of Jewish and political leaders who opposed Paul and his relentless proclamation of the gospel. He was routinely harassed, beaten, arrested, and imprisoned. He knew it was only a matter of time before his enemies would silence him by putting him to death, as they had done to Jesus.
And now here he was, giving words of farewell to the leaders of the beloved Ephesian church. In recounting all that he had done through the power of God to birth, nurture, and mature their church, he then inserted this succinct declaration of his own personal mission: “…I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me – the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.” (Acts 20:24)
In all of Paul’s illustrious and powerful ministry, it all boiled down to that one statement. And Paul consistently lived out the spirit of that statement until the very end of his life.
As we mature in our faith in Jesus, may we shed lesser ambitions and share in Paul’s single-minded priority – “the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.”
