I will drive your purpose.

I can feel the oppressiveness that is the rest of my life. For some reason, when I was walking from my statistics lab to my genetics lab, I had a thought. The thought was that I was really happy to be leaving Corvallis, I like going to school here, I liked learning things, I liked the people that I have become friends with, I even like some of the food (mmm, ADP). Its not that I fear leaving here, nor that I like it so much that I want to stay. I guess that I really want to experience what is next. But that also is some of the reason for the oppressiveness, I don’t know how long it will be till I get to do what I want to do. I have been learning things now so that it will prepare me for getting into the grad school that I want, now I will have a job that I can earn money to pay for the grad school, than I might get into the grad school that I want to, so that I can spend years learning something, than I might just get to do that thing that I feel.

I have been reading Purpose Driven Life, partly because it seemed to connect with something that I was feeling, namely that by identifying purpose, you can feel your design, and so your designer. I hated the book before I picked it up, so this was a little challenging for me to even just read it and try and digest something out of the book. Before I started to read it, I did not like that the book is “popular”, that it is the “Christian” thing to read, but I wanted to understand, I wanted to listen and learn. I have had purpose for a few days now, and some of the things that I have to take issue with right off the bat.

I never realized how uncomfortable the idea that God makes all the decisions was to me. The book takes the stand that “you are who you are because god wants you that way”. That you’re the race, gender, and geographic location of who you are because god wants you that way. I don’t like this because it takes no account for sin, I feel that if god does not cause people to sin, but we do all the time, than he cannot have chosen for us to sin, but if he did not chose for us to sin, but planed on it to make us who we are, that goes against the “good plans” thing, but if everyone did what they were “supposed” to, than there would be no sin, than no illegitimate children, no crack babies, but do these things call into question the “all powerfulness” of god? I have a hard time thinking that having someone born into a parasite infected trash heap and die before they make it to there first birthday is all that “good of a plan” but that’s just my jaded human perspective. I just feel that sometimes people do not take into account the factor of free will and sin, how does a god plan for things when we have a choice in the matter? We keep mucking it up. But than you can say that sin and suffering cause growth, but than god chose that path for my education, so does that make that thing a sin? I could rationalize anything that way, there would be no absolutes, but than god might not deal with absolutes, perhaps god is more flexible, and absolutes are a human thing. It seems that the bible god talks in absolutes, but than he also changes his mind, so that shows compassion and flexibility.

The point of the book is that you’re here and you’re who you are to serve god and his plan. I know that I am really self centered, but if all I am to be is a slave something inside me revolts at that idea. That is not enough purpose for me. I need more, but should I? Should I be satisfied with being a servant to god the creator and master of the universe? Is it just greed that wants more? I remember how I think Wild at Heart tells the story of a guy who has made his girlfriend the “center of his universe, and a man’s sole needs a much bigger orbit than that”. I was running this in my mind, and the thing that came to me was that “I want to be equal with god”, but I have to reject that right away because that’s the big lie, but that’s not the core of my desire to be more than a slave, but only me loosing my salvation for a moment. I see a slave as a commodity, something that you can use, abuse and toss when you are done. A slave is an object. I am not a slave. God uses the metaphor of a bride and groom for our relationship I know that some people feel that this is little better than a slave to master situation, and I don’t have a lot of personal marriages to speak from, but I know the way that I feel when I am in a relationship with a girl, and that is a dam far thing from a slave, servant, or object. In the same way that something inside of me refuses to be a slave, I refuse to be married to one. No, there is more to god than just creating mindless servants to do what he wants, to fill his desires. God is a lover.

M@
Your opponent, in the end, is never really the player on the other side of the net, or the swimmer in the next lane, or the team on the other side of the field, or even the bar you must high-jump. Your opponent is yourself, your negative internal voices, your level of determination.