0205 living for a purpose

A friend came by and helped me with my walking exercise. Afterwards, we chatted a bit and I told him that I had a lot of time to think. The subject turned to living life according to the purpose that God has for you. Unfortunately, not all of us know what that purpose is.

One of the things I thought of was Noah. We all know that Noah built the Ark, in order to save the animals from the Great Flood. He gathered two of each kind of animal, a male and a female, and had them enter the Ark. He also took his wife and his sons (Ham, Shem, and Japeth) and their wives. The Ark saved them all while God destroyed every other living thing on the Earth.

Noah also took with him every food for his family and for the animals, so that they could survive. We learn this in Genesis 6. But what wasn’t written is how the animals were fed and cared for during the months that the floodwaters filled the Earth. We know that it was among the commands that God gave Noah, but the task was so great that he had to have the help of his wife, his sons, and his son’s wives.

If the animals didn’t survive, then God’s plan couldn’t be carried out. But how they survived isn’t written in Genesis; only that they did survive. Perhaps the purpose of the others were to help the animals survive.

We often think that we’re here to serve a meaningful purpose, as long as that purpose means something to us. Perhaps the purpose is around us, but we don’t see it because we don’t recognize it. One of our human traits is arrogance. When something is not important to us, we don’t think of it as important.

For example, the ministry of Jesus is important. But after His birth, we only see glimpses of Him in the Bible until His thirties, at which time He journeys throughout the land, teaching about God’s salvation. But how He was raised is just as important. We don’t imagine that He was supernatural, going from birth to thirty in as much time as it takes to snap your fingers.

No, Jesus was fully human, so He took thirty years to grow. For those of you who have children, think about how much goes into them from birth to age thirty. A lot, right? So what if the “purpose” is being a good parent? It’s an important job and it has to be done.

We know that Joseph and Mary were righteous, but they shaped Jesus into the man He became. Day by day, month by month, year by year.

There was an episode of the original series in “Star Trek” where Kirk and the Enterprise are thrown back in time to the mid-twentieth century. A U.S. fighter jet is scrambled to intercept this “UFO”. The Enterprise puts a tractor beam on it, but the “fragileness” of its construction starts breaking it apart.

The Enterprise crew rescues the pilot, but in order to protect the timeline, they check his identity in historical records. Spock reports that the pilot made no meaningful contributions, so they opt to keep him from returning to Earth.

But later in the episode, Spock says that he made a mistake. Although the pilot made no meaningful contributions, his son did. The pilot says that he doesn’t have a son. That’s when Dr. McCoy says, “Well, not yet.” If they don’t return him to Earth, his son will never exist and their history will cease to exist.

I think that God has millions of people living their lives purposefully, but only God knows the whole plan. I don’t think that we need to know it to carry it out.

But that’s what I’ve been thinking about. What do you think?

On a side note, mythology tells us that the unicorn was one of the animals that couldn’t get to the Ark in time, which is why it doesn’t exist today, except in stories and dreams.