Life in all its Fullness

The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. 

My purpose is to give life in all its fullness. 

(John 10:10, New Living Translation)

In my previous post I told you about a woman whose face was world famous yet she didn't know it. Her image appeared on magazine covers all over the world yet she lived in poverty, eking out an existence at the foothills of a desolate mountain. Her image was world famous yet she remained completely unknown.

The fundamental key to living on purpose is to know the truth about who you are.

What you do not know can, and does, harm you.

It harms you in the sense that, like the woman, you may be alive, but you are merely eking out an existence, living far below the fullness of all that is available to you.

And I’m not just talking about having enough money.

Money helps, we all know that. But if life was simply about being financially secure, then we would not witness such a high degree of divorce, depression, suicide, and addiction in the lives of the rich and famous.

You can be a success at work yet be miserable at home because your marriage is falling apart.

You may finally move into the big house in the posh neighbourhood with the fancy car, yet lay awake in bed every night, your mind racing, your heart pounding, longing for a good night's sleep.

Riches lose their lustre when you have a child who has gone astray. And wealth is a vain comfort when your family is plagued by a chronic illness eating away at your health, your finances, your time, your peace.

Maybe for you, life is good – except when it seems like an endless treadmill of waking up, eating, going to work, eating, sitting in front of the TV, going to bed. And then you have to do it all over again the next day... and the next...

Or for you, life is good – so long as you don’t turn off the TV or radio or iPod or cell phone or Internet or whatever background noise keeps you going from the moment you wake up to the moment you drop into bed at night. Anything to keep away the silence. Anything to keep you from thinking. Anything to keep you from feeling that nagging emptiness that tells you there has to be more to life than this?

When you tap into the truth of who you are, you tap into the power of living on purpose.

Learn more about developing empowering belief systems in the next post.

The Afghan Girl

My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6)

Her face became famous as the cover photograph on the June 1985 issue of National Geographic. Her image was named "the most recognized photograph" in the history of the magazine.

Her photograph has been widely used on Amnesty International brochures, posters, and calendars and has inspired artists the world over.

Photographer Stephen McCurry took his most recognized portrait, "Afghan Girl", in a refugee camp near Peshawar, Pakistan. However, the identity of the "Afghan Girl" remained unknown for over 17 years until McCurry and a National Geographic team located the woman in 2002.

Her name is Sharbat Gula, and she had no idea that her face was world famous.

Sharbat had never seen her famous portrait before it was shown to her in January 2002. She had endured all manner of hardship and poverty in the intervening years despite her celebrity. Her village in the mountain foothills has no running water, so she fetches water from a stream. She can write her name but she cannot read and hopes that her 3 daughters will get the education that she never did. Highly unlikely, since she lives in a village that has no school.

“Sharbat has never known a happy day,” her brother says, “except perhaps the day of her marriage.”

One of the essential keys of living on purpose is to know the truth about who you are.

Learn more about developing empowering belief systems in the next post.

National Geographic