“Direction, not intention gets you to your desired destination.”
Andy Stanley
True confession: I am terrible with directions. I have been known to pull out of my driveway the wrong way. A lot of that is the process of habit. I turn left out the drive because most days of my life I turn left out of my drive.
My kids will attest that sometimes we end up somewhere “accidentally on purpose”. Let me explain.
“Accidentally on purpose” is where you set out to a specified destination. Get lost. Arrive at another completely different destination and turn to your kids and say “we are here.” And “here” is not where you set out to end up at all.
Life has been a constant arrival of “heres” in my life. Outside of few rare occurrences, many of my arrivals have been by accident lacking purpose. Not to negate the reality that life is part adventure and part of the adventure is the discovery of the unknown. But too often the unknown has been found because there was not a clear direction to where I was going.
The prophet Jeremiah wrote the captives what God was speaking. It was “I know the plans I have for you…” God in his usual banter with me says “Jeff, if I have a plan for you, how come you seem to live by accident?”
Oops.
I won’t “accidentally on purpose” become who God has intended for my life to become. I won’t “accidentally on purpose” arrive at the destination God has for me. I never seem to “accidentally on purpose” live the life laid out for.
Those things only happen when we have purpose. What I have found in my life is when I have misplaced purpose I end up with misplace passions. The passions of my life never change. The passion to communicate, to help people, to live a life full. Yet what happens is when I lack purpose those passions get placed in areas that do not directly get me where God’s plan is leading.
And where I end up is “here” accidentally on purpose.
So the shift is to live with purpose. Purpose requires decision making, not always my favorite activity. Purpose requires choosing myself while loving and serving others. Purpose means moving past good intentions to live with action. Purpose means facing fears and opposition and standing strong in the face of both. Purpose means picking a destination and then setting a course to get there.
Otherwise you just end up “here” accidentally on purpose.
