When Everything Around You Is Fighting Your Purpose: PDL Insights Part 15
When Everything Around You Is Fighting Your Purpose: PDL Insights Part 15
Why Many Fail to Fulfill Their Purposes After Discovering Them
As we continue discussing why many people fail to discover The
Purpose Driven Life (PDL) or to embrace it to the end upon discovery, we move
on to what I have called the social base. The social base is just the
environment that we grow in and in most cases it is where we get our sense and
interpretation of self from. Most of the time we fail to fulfil our purposes
because the idea of purpose is alien and foreign in most of the environments
that we are raised in hence we do not have strong enough reasons why we have to
live Purpose Driven Lives.
Behavioural Psychology says that there are two primary motivators
of success and these are the fear of pain and the pursuit for pleasure. Most of
our actions are motivated by these two forces. Most people are driven by the
fear of pain and hence have motivation to avoid the pain and start working
towards their goals. This motivation however will not be enough once the person
escapes the pain. The major motivation would be finding enough other reasons
that go with our inner values why we must succeed. What will happen if you
don’t succeed? If your answer is nothing, then you do not have enough fuel to
take you through especially when you meet challenges and obstacles on your way.
We usually have challenges in realising and fulfilling our
purposes in life because we are not aware of the existence of purpose and if we
do, we are not developed and skilled for it. The social environment we grow in
does not assist in developing us for purpose. I have always talked about how
the rate at which the world is evolving is way faster than the rate at which
people are evolving to cope. This is because the major institutions that
develop people are changing at a very slow rate hence failing to cope with what
the environment is demanding from people.
Looking at institutions like education, church, family,
governments or local authorities, there is minimum investment in them to
capacitate them to improve on quality and be effective instruments to develop
enough people with a capacity of coping with the complex world. The corporate
world and capitalist idea of profit is leading all change. When it comes to
individual development the system has not fostered a culture of personal
development.
Most personal development has been motivated by the capitalistic
education system to be employable. People generally do not think of personal development
other than improving employability therefore when it comes to the necessary
skills for individual success in all aspects of life, people lack the most
important skills required for success especially The Purpose Driven Life (PDL).
Let us begin to look at the aspects in our social environment that influence
our journeys to living purposeful lives.
Marriage
and family
The first institution that has the potential to develop and
support us for the PDL is that of marriage and family. The family institution
should be a supportive environment that supports us for fruitfulness. It should
be a sanctuary where we go to or where we stand on to tackle the pressures of
the world system that is designed to destroy our lives and separate us from our
true identity. Going back to the creation story of man, we see the
establishment of the first family. Before Adam was given a wife he was given a
purpose first. The purpose was dominating the earth starting with tending the
garden. His wife is brought into the picture to be a helper meet (suitable, adapted, complementary) for him. [Genesis
2:18] AMP
With the earlier identified challenges of most people not being
aware of The Purpose Driven Life, marriages and families have not been very
supportive. Most people have been side-tracked from The Purpose Driven Life by
marriage and family. They have not gotten support from their spouses and family.
Sometimes it seems as if marriage and families have become greatest hindrances
to purpose. Because family members are not wired to understand about purpose
they put so much pressure that drains your energy and kill your voice. This is
because we would value the comfort of family at the expense of our voices and
inner values. This explains why the Apostle Paul commented on how marriage can
drain energy saying,
I
want you to live as free of complications as possible. When you're unmarried, you're
free to concentrate on simply pleasing the Master. Marriage involves you in all
the nuts and bolts of domestic life and in wanting to please your spouse,
leading to so many more demands on your attention. The time and energy that
married people spend on caring for and nurturing each other, the unmarried can
spend in becoming whole and holy instruments of God. [1 Corinthians 7:32-35 THE
MESSAGE Bible]
This should not however scare you into getting married as some
have managed marriage and purpose and allowed each to support the other. People
who have made an impact in life have however sometimes had to temporarily stand
their ground and go against the advice of family for their purpose to take
shape. It is when your conviction of purpose has begun showing fruit that you
will be able to mend strained relationships. I am a living testimony to this.
My PDL path seemed foolish to my family as I had to leave a degree program I
was pursuing and take a different path. No one in my family was on my side to
take the path I took but I stood with my inner convictions. It is when things
began to take shape that I began to mend broken relationship and now all the
people appreciate that I took that path.
If put to effective use however, marriage and family can be a good
platform to develop the necessary character. With the right attitude we can maximise
on whatever we get from our families. The resistance and sometimes opposition
and lack of support can be blocks used by God to shape our character and test
our convictions. Personally in my path I was earlier prophetically advised that
I would meet the opposition from family and church so that I would develop the
capability to withstand rejection. This capacity would then be necessary to
capacitate me to stand in a more brutal environment that would not be
supportive when I would take a path that challenges its norms and standards. I
remember Mike Murdock in one of his books talking about how the family usually
would create an environment to prepare us for whatever we would face in the
pursuit of purpose. There would be people and circumstances that would typify
the opposition of the enemy and the support of the counterparts and the right
attitude will help us benefit from both. This echoes to the words of one who
lived a PDL to the fullest who said,
And
we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those
who are the called according to His purpose. [Romans 8:28]
System of
This World
If you do not allow God to tell you who you are, the system of this
world will and you are in great trouble if you start small – Coach Tarie: The
Wisdom Garden (Volume 1)
Still on the social
base, the general system of the world is designed by the enemy to stop you from
fulfilling your divine purpose. In one presentation by Dr Lance Wallnau quoting
a study that had been done in America said that, “By the time an average girl
reaches the age of 15, she would have had some 13000 hours of comparison forced
upon her in media telling her what she ought to look like and be like in order
to be cool.” Research also says that it takes 10 000 hours of training for one
to become a professional in anything. This means that by the time someone
reaches that age they are professionals in disqualifying themselves and proving
why they can’t do and be something.
This shows that The Purpose Driven Life (PDL) paradigm should be
incorporated in the raising of children so that they grow with the right
perception and attitude. This explains why sometimes when our purposes confront
us we fail to embrace them because they seem to be way out of our reach as
compared to our current positions. Many people in the bible doubted their
capabilities when they encountered their purposes. Most of them tried to find
excuses when their purposes confronted them.
Moses talked of his speaking challenges, Simon Peter and Isaiah
talked of their uncleanness and Gideon tried to give excuses saying,
"Please
Lord, how am I to rescue Israel? Behold, my family is the least [significant]
in Manasseh, and I am the youngest (smallest) in my father's house."
[Judges 6:15]
With this attitude where we see ourselves with the wrong lenses we
feel not adequate enough to take bigger responsibilities hence disqualify
ourselves from our purposes. Reconnecting ourselves with our true identity is
therefore necessary to be able to accept our purposes.
Culture is designed,
when it’s under the influence of the devil to rob you of your uniqueness and
make you feel by comparison to an unreal standard that you do not measure up.
Our culture has not trained us to be responsible for our destiny. It has not
taught us to be architectures of our own destiny so the majority of the people
from an African perspective do not see themselves as responsible to what their
lives will become.
Most people think that
wherever their lives will end up is the will of God for their lives. Back from
ancient traditional beliefs, those who succeeded did so because the ancestral
spirits were appeased and failure and misfortunes was a result of unpleased
ancestors. People would pass on skills and trades but not much the mentality of
designing one’s desired future. Too much success would be associated with witchcraft
activities. This shows why to some extend the social base in the system that we
grow under sometimes work against us in pursuing our purposes. We have a
responsibility whereby we create a new culture and system that allows those who
are following us to be raised with a sense of purpose and responsibility. This
is my own reason of existence and I am designing systems that will create this
new culture starting with children.
Religion
Religion has also a
part that it plays in encouraging or discouraging the PDL. Much of the
preaching that came in the colonial era whether deliberate on not came
addressing the focus of life as being going to Heaven. Most preaching would
make going to Heaven as the primary end in life but failing to address the
understanding that going to Heaven is a product of a decision of faith but the
status and rewards that one gets in heaven is to the degree that one lived the
PDL. People in heaven will be rewarded based on the works that they did and the
best way of assuring that you are doing works worthy of rewards is in the good
works along the line of your reason of existence.
The preaching that
focused on going to heaven which was an incomplete gospel raised people who were
of no earthly good. In this way religion robbed people of discovering how they
could live fruitful lives for God. Still on religion, we are now invaded by a
Prophetic phenomenon that is achieving good results of meeting the needs of
people but sometimes at the expense of people living purposeful lives. The
movement sometimes makes people rely on the Prophets and see them as ultimate
saviors while they fail to discover the potential they have to transform their
lives. This kind of thinking expects lives and development to be a product of
miracles as opposed to purpose driven work.
The idea of Purpose
Driven Living is now beginning to dawn on the church and with minimal
understanding on the subject, purpose is defined in line with what one is
supposed to do in their church services. People begin to think of purpose along
the lines of only what they do in church. This is because they see the founder
of the church as the one on a true purpose and the rest with the responsibility
of furthering the purpose of the church leader. The gift of the Prophet becomes
the only avenue of ministry yet when one identifies their purpose they are more
empowered to support the ministry. The percentage of people whose purposes are
directly involved in the church operations and facilitating the works of
Pastors, Evangelists, Teachers, Prophets and Apostles is very small. The
majority of the people have their purposes in the marketplace and when they are
effective in that they are better empowered and positioned to win people into
the Kingdom from there and also to support the work done by their churches.
It takes revelation to
empower people on how they can fully live out their purposes, especially those
who are in the religious sphere. The Kingdom of God is fully advanced as people
find their way with Kingdom influence into the seven mountains/ spheres of
influence which are Politics and Governance, Arts and Entertainment, Business
and Economics, Media and Information, Education, Religion and Family. There is
so much commotion on the religious mountain because it is the mountain where
the idea of purpose has been discovered in the light of the Kingdom of God.
People perceive living to minister the word as the only way to minister on a
full time basis for the Lord. This has been worsened by the fact that this religious
sphere is the only mountain where people have managed to use their spiritual
gifts.
People are supposed to
manifest spiritual gifts in all the spheres of life. Taking Models from Daniel
interpreting dreams, receiving miraculous interventions on their bodies and
surviving opposition, this was not happening in the temple but in the
marketplace in politics. Joseph saw his gifts manifesting in the marketplace
from the prison then in political offices. The same is the case for David. If
people will understand the PDL not as it has been defined by the limited
understanding of religious minds, many will not start churches but exercise
their purposes as they solve political, economic, artistic, informational,
educational and family problems.
Dr Lance Wallnau, a
minister of the word and a life and business coach, in one of his sermons
explains how he was under pressure to move away from the marketplace to ‘full
time church ministry’ because of the religious thinking of the day that made
people to think that as long as you were not serving full time in church
ministry then you were not fully living a PDL. In that confusion the Lord began
to reveal to him otherwise, how he was supposed to fulfill his purpose by
engaging the church and marketplace ministry together.
To surprise him to the
possibility of such, as someone who used to prophecy in church gatherings, one
day he felt the same urge he would have when a prophetic word would come while he
was in a major business strategic board meeting where he was working. The same
way he would give a prophetic word, he gave a business solution in the meeting.
After telling them of the business solution and strategy without revealing to
them that it was prophecy, he described that as had never happened in any of
such meetings, the chairman of the corporation stood and clapped hands for him joined
by the rest of the board. The strategy was implemented and changed the returns
of the company significantly. Religion still has strongholds that stand in the
way for many to discover how they can serve the Kingdom of God faithfully in
full time Purpose Driven Lives in the marketplace.
Unpleasant Experiences and Outcomes
People are
afraid to fail because they allow failure to define them, but failure is not
failure if you take it as a learning process and draw lessons from it and take
the price you pay as school fees; it becomes a jewel on your road to success-
Coach Tarie: The Wisdom Garden (Volume 1)
Many people have lifetime experiences in their lives that if not
well handled with the right attitude which is the God attitude, will disqualify
them. We all have our pasts and society can use it to disqualify us from
pursuing The Purpose Driven Life (PDL). Experiences taken with the right
attitude can be effective on helping us live purposeful lives, but with the
wrong attitude can cripple us.
Most people have not been trained how to deal with failure.
Failure is not embraced by many but the real truth is that failure is usually a
key component of success to those who make it in life. Many people quit or are
totally devastated after failing and end up losing the motivation to continue
with pursuing their dreams.
In another book that l
am writing, ‘Skill factor’, I teach about the ‘art of failure’ as a life skill
that we were not taught in school but necessary for success. Society has not
taught us to accept failure yet being able to accept and embrace it is a key
ingredient to success. In an American study carried on self-made millionaires,
they discovered that all of the self-made millionaires had been involved in an
average of 18 other business before they got in the ones that made them
millionaires. Going for at least 18 different businesses is a sign that they
were able to pick themselves up after failure and never allowed failure to stop
them pursuing their dreams.
No matter how many times you trip them up, God-loyal people don't
stay down long; Soon they're up on their feet, while the wicked end up flat on
their faces. [Proverbs 24:16] (THE MESSAGE BIBLE)
Read more about the Art of Failure on, http://www.coachtarie.com/2016/05/skill-factor-3-what-school-did-not.html.
Do not let your experiences or failures be tools that society will
use to stop you from pursuing your purpose. Do not also use them to disqualify
yourself and be your own enemy. Allow me at this time to conclude on discussing
how the social base can be a major contributor to you living the full PDL. As
discussed, the social base is composed of Marriage and Family, The system of
the World, Religion and Culture and all so past unfavourable experiences which
can stand on our PDL path. If taken with the right attitude, the social base
has good building blocks to fruitful and productive life. In the next insight I
will introduce what I have called the Secret Code to Success that helps us
unlock the right attitude to success. Let us continue the PDL journey together
and create a new culture for ourselves, our counterparts and our children and
children’s children.
Look for more insights on the PDL on www.coachtarie.com or request to be added
on the PURPOSE DRIVEN LIVING (PDL) WhatsApp group. Inbox any of the following
numbers. +263773301267, +263783573784, +263784456314, +263779924607
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