Summary: <br> What are you going through right now? What is your struggle? Where is your uncertainty?<br> Are you going through it with purpose? I’m not asking if you’ve discovered the purpose in it, but are you moving through this uncertainty or this struggle WITH purpose? We don’t typically understand the purpose in the hardship while we’re still in the middle of it, that perspective typically comes on the other side when we look back and say “ahhhhhh, God I see what you were doing there.”<br> But for those of us still in the middle, still unsure of exactly what God is doing in this mess, still without clear vision of his great plan, are we waking up with purpose? Are we moving with purpose? Are we living each day, yes today, with purpose, while in the middle of the unknown?<br> I occasionally watch “Running Wild” with Bear Grylls. With a name like Bear, he’s just living up to his potential intentionally placing himself in the most extreme situations and showing us how to survive. His legendary line is “Awwwww, this is a bad situation here!”<br> How many times in our own lives could we say something similar? Awwwww, this is a bad situation here. We may not be hanging on the side of a mountain with a hungry mountain lion at the top, or the deep abyss at the bottom, but we sure find ourselves in some sticky situations where the next move is unclear, don’t we?<br> We can have all the faith in the world that says there’s ultimately a greater purpose in all of this, but what about right now? What direction do we take in this moment where that greater purpose is unclear?<br> MOVE WITH DEFINED PURPOSE NOW.<br> Bear Grylls, the ultimate burly adventure man who intentionally places himself in the most dangerous of situations, took Drew Brees, the quarterback for the New Orleans Saints, out for an adventure. Now if you think the adventures I offer at one of our Adventure Retreats will take your breath away … girl, no! Our whitewater rafting, zip-lining and mountain climbing is entry level! Bear took Drew Brees on an adventure that started with jumping out of a helicopter into a crocodile infested river in the jungle. We’ve done some crazy things at retreats, but I’ve yet to get you in a river with crocodiles, at least I don’t think there were crocodiles in that river … maybe there were.<br> So Bear is instructing Drew on jumping out of the helicopter into the crocodile infested river in the jungle below (don’t get confused … this isn’t a bible story, this is a television show, there is no scripture reference yet) and Bear says “swim with purpose and you’ll be fine.”<br> SWIM WITH PURPOSE AND YOU’LL BE FINE.<br> It was so powerful I literally grabbed my journal and wrote it down. Swim with purpose.<br> I don’t know what your crocodile infested river may be, but I know with real life comes real threats. Real problems. Real worries, not just made up fictitious worries, but the real ones.<br> Just within the circle of women I mentor, there’s a woman standing by the hospital bed of her 40 year old husband who just had a heart attack and she feels helpless.<br> There’s a woman whose son hasn’t spoken to her in 3 years and she doesn’t know how to fix it.<br> There’s a woman whose husband continues to be unfaithful and her heart is broken.<br> There’s a woman who is struggling so hard with depression, the darkness nearly consumes her on some days.<br> How do you swim those waters? How do you survive those crocodiles?<br> SWIM WITH PURPOSE.<br> You can swim with purpose, without knowing the overall purpose. You can take the next step in your climb without seeing the full staircase. You can do the next right thing while the ultimate big picture right thing is still unknown.<br> MOVE WITH DEFINED PURPOSE RIGHT NOW.<br>
