tyler ward.

I’ve recently heard a lot of people go on about finding their purpose in life. It’s nothing new to me. In fact, my quest for purpose has been a dramatically arduous one. One, in which, I won’t emotionally wear you out with now. Let’s just say that at one point in my life, if Rick Warren in “The Purpose Driven Life” would have told me that my purpose was to eat cow feces, I would be well experienced at getting my stomach pumped by now.

However, I don’t know that it was always the “purpose” of my life I was looking for.

Is it our quest for purpose that drives us in our young age to travel the world, keep ipod’s in our ears, obsess over orgasms, or put a syringe in our arm? Is it a search for purpose that makes us – in our older societal-seasoned lives – bury ourselves in work, sink our families in debt, or run to alcohol when vacations just don’t quite thrill us the way they use to? Is it a search for purpose that inspires us to give our money to a stranger on the streets, stir romance with our spouse, or ask God to show up in our everyday lives? I’m not so sure.

Take it or leave it. But, I think that what i was always subconsciously looking for was the experience of being and feeling alive. With it’s tag team of comfort and speed, our modern society works hard to sedate us from feeling life. This “road runner culture” keeps us in cycles of pursuit, often promising that what we want is just around the next corner. However, the majority of what we’re questing for is right in front of us.

Generally, all it takes is the courage to refuse the sexiness of speed & achievement in order to slow down.

There are life-changing stories inside the people we walk past everyday. There are landscapes throughout your everyday that could alter your perspective. There are life-shifting moments in the quiet of everyday that have the power to significantly change us. Most of all, Holy Spirit is consistently inquiring to do life with us, and is rarely heard. Sadly enough, we’re often too busy and a bit too small minded to experience being alive.

In my opinion, our society–and especially the church–is in urgent need to stop and smell the roses.

Of course there’s a certain speed of life that our jobs, families, and responsibilities demand of us. But time management isn’t the point. When we begin to value “experiencing” life-and not simply hurrying through it just to reach the next deadline or goal— our default mode shifts. Our focus shifts from how much we can accomplish in every moment of our day…to…how we can progress as an individual or how we can better love somebody. Our perception changes from time being a finite commodity with no minute to “waste”…to…life being seasonal and every moment worth enjoying. Our free time shifts from just more time to work…to…conversing with a stranger, spending more time with our families, processing the implications of our words and actions, or simply doing more of what we love.

When this default mode changes, everything changes. Not only will we feel more alive, but we might just convince the world around us that life is more than vain pursuits. And, in turn, maybe even prove that there IS purpose to be found on earth.